MONTREAL — The highly touted Jonathan Drouin says it’s not much fun watching the playoffs from the press box but what can he do on a team loaded with scoring talent like the Tampa Bay Lightning?
The third overall pick in the 2013 draft from the Memorial Cup champion Halifax Mooseheads has played only once so far in the post-season — Game 4 of the first round against Detroit, when he was minus-2 even though neither goal could be said to be his fault.
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He is expected to be a healthy scratch again for Game 2 of the second round on Sunday night in Montreal.
“It’s tough for anyone, you want to be out there,” said Druoin. “But we have a good team.”
The 20-year-old from Huberdeau, Que., played 70 games in the regular season, posting four goals and 28 assists in what the Lighting considered a learning season for the gifted left-winger.
“A lot of people were expecting more statistics, more production, but I thought I had a pretty good year with the team we had,” he said. “I think it was better for me to come to a team like that with no pressure.
“The spotlight isn’t really on me and I learned a lot this year.”
Most of the attention goes to scoring star Steven Stamkos and a stellar second line of Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat.
There isn’t room on the top two lines, and coach Jon Cooper doesn’t use his fourth line a lot. Sometimes he goes with seven defencemen and only two extra forwards. And so far, the Lightning are healthy.
But Cooper said Drouin will get a chance to show what he can do at some point in the playoffs.
“He’s an extreme talent and he’s getting better and better,” said Cooper. “This is a learning experience just as it was last year for Kuch or Palat or Johnson.
“But you put in your twenty (players) you feel, on this day, is going to give us the best chance to win. Probably, moving forward, he’s going to be in that 20 all the time. Just right now, he’s on the sidelines. Whether he has to wait his turn or we feel a matchup is best for him, but I can tell you, he’s going to play in this series at some point. We just have to see when.”
