Will Morin Evolve into an Offensive Defenseman?
As soon as the Philadelphia Flyers selected Samuel Morin with the 11th overall pick of the 2012 NHL Draft, people began to trot out comparisons to Chris Pronger. I think that sets the bar unrealistically high for now, especially from an offensive standpoint.
Pronger was a dominant offensive player in junior hockey, apart from being a physical force. He was a point-per-game player in the OHL's Peterborough Petes even at age 16. In his draft year, Pronger posted 15 goals and 77 regular season points and another 15 goals and 40 points in 21 playoff games. Pronger was immediately physically ready -- but not immediately mature enough off the ice -- to jump straight to the NHL at age 18.
Morin does not have Pronger's pedigree. He might not be ready for pro hockey until he's 20 and then it could several more years beyond that for him to start to make an impact in the NHL. My hope for Morin is that he becomes a bigger and better-skating version of Luke Schenn as his game starts to mature.
In other words, I'd consider Morin a successful pick if he evolves into an intimidating shutdown defenseman. If he develops an offensive game at the NHL level, it would be a bonus. Predicting that he becomes a two-way force and NHL franchise player like Pronger is setting Morin up for failure.
Or is it? I asked a longtime NHL scout for a Western Conference team to give me his post-Draft thoughts on Morin. Was he a "reach" at the number 11 spot in the Draft? Who would be a good NHL comparison player at the same age -- is Luke Schenn a fair comparison?
Via email, I got this response: "Not a reach. The tools are all there to be a top guy. He needs to grow into his frame and gain experience. Schenn is a good comparison but Morin could surprise you with his offense someday. No guarantees in NHL but he's getting better and better in all aspects of the game, including offense."
My own direct viewing experience of watching Morin play is limited to having watched live streams of three games he played at the 2013 Under-18 World Championships: Canada's 6-0 drubbing of Sweden in the preliminary round (a game in which Robert Hägg also played), 3-1 semifinal win over Finland and 3-2 gold medal game win over Team USA. I did not watch any of Morin's QMJHL games for Rimouski this past year.
Based on the U18 Worlds games, I saw Morin as a strictly defensive defenseman who happened to have above-average mobility for a player his size. The potential to become a fearsome shutdown defenseman was evident. He also made a good first pass in the defensive zone. As for an offensive game, it wasn't evident to me. To be fair, however, triggering offense was not Morin's role on the national team.
Canada already had all the offensive-minded defensemen they needed. Josh Morrissey was dominant whenever he had the puck on his stick. Madison Bowey was also aggressive in pushing the attack. Along with Chris Bigras, Morin's main role on the team was to focus on taking care of his own end of the ice. He did that very well.
Morin said in his post-Draft interview that he's worked a lot on his shot over the last couple years and has gone from a subpar shooter to having one of the best shots on his Rimouski club. A glance at his early production history doesn't suggest there's much to work with offensively.
Playing midget hockey for Levis in 2010-11, Morin had zero goals and 12 assists in 36 games. As a first-year QMJHL player in Rimouski the next year, he had zero goals and eight assists in 62 regular season games followed by zero goals and one assist in 10 playoff games. This past season, he had four goals, 12 assists and 16 points in 46 regular season games. His regular season was cut short by a fractured collarbone.
Those early numbers certainly do not suggest that Morin has a future offensive role ahead of him at the pro level. As a rule of thumb, players who offensively dominate lower levels of hockey may or may not someday translate that game to the pro level -- the majority do not -- and those who are not regular offensive producers at lower levels very rarely go on to have any sort of offensive role in the NHL.
Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
Take the case of Shea Weber. The perennial Norris Trophy candidate did not start out on the typical track of a future offensively feared NHL defenseman. From modest offensive beginnings, he improved year after year as a junior player and continued to build upon that progress once he hit the pros.
In Weber's Draft year season of 2002-03, the WHL rookie had two goals and 18 points in 70 games for the Kelowna Rockets. With older, offensive-minded defensemen on the team such as 19-year-old Duncan Keith (11 goals, 46 points in 37 regular season games after leaving Michigan State University as a sophomore) and Josh Gorges (11 goals, 59 points in 54 games), the 17-year-old Weber was expected to focus on his defensive and physical games.
Over the next few years, as the older players graduated to the pros, Weber's offensive responsibilities grew. He had 12 goals and 34 points in 60 regular season games in 2003-04, followed by 17 points (three goals, 14 assists) in 17 postseason tilts. In 2004-05, Weber produced 12 goals and 41 points in 55 regular season games and then exploded for nine goals and 17 points in 18 playoff games.
Weber turned pro at age 20. He made an immediate two-way impact at the American Hockey League level (12 goals, 27 points in 46 regular season games, six goals and 11 points in 14 Calder Cup playoff games) and dressing in 28 NHL games (with a very respectable 10 points) in 2005-06. He didn't stop there, continuing to grow both offensively and defensively each year to the point that his NHL production has actually outpaced what he did in junior hockey -- which is a real rarity.
I am most certainly NOT going to call Samuel Morin the next Shea Weber, either offensive or defensively. That is just as unfair at this point as the Pronger comparisons.
What I will say, though, is that when you look a little deeper into Morins Draft-year Quebec League season, there are some hints that the scouts who see an emerging offensive game may be onto something that he is trending upward in his offensive potential.
If you look at the 13 regular season games in 2012-13 leading up to Morin's fractured collarbone (suffered on January 26), he scored all four of his goals and also added a pair of assists. He missed the rest of the regular season, except for the final game. In the playoffs, Morin had seven points (one goal, six assists) in six games. That ranked eighth among all QMJHL defensemen in the 2013 playoffs, with everyone else in the top 13 having played for teams that went a minimum of 10 games deep into the postseason. Even at the Under-18 Worlds in his strictly defensive role, Morin had a pair of assists in seven games.
This is a small sample size of games, of course. It should also be added that unlike Weber in his Draft year, Morin did not play on a junior team that was already loaded with firepower from the blueline. Diminutive overager Kevin Gagne (a mid-season acquisition) was certainly an above-average QMJHL offensive defenseman over the latter part of his junior career but he's no Josh Gorges much less Duncan Keith. None of the other Oceanic defensemen produced more than 22 points.
Even so, there is reason to hope that Morin's offensive game could continue to improve along with his burgeoning defensive style. He is very much a work in progress, with a lot of rough edges that need to be smoothed and a lot of filling out to do before he ever skates a shift in the NHL. Once he gets to the top level, he'll still have several years worth of a steep learning curve to navigate.
If Morin can come close to maximizing his defensive potential, the Flyers will have a real solid player on their hands. If an NHL-level offensive game someday comes along with it, so much the better.
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COMING TOMORROW: A look at the NHL potential of Michael Raffl, and the pros and cons of re-signing Simon Gagne.
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