Stéphane Waite confirms that the Montreal pressure was too much for Jonathan Drouin

In the first text of the day, I mentioned how smoking Jonathan Drouin is these days.

Yesterday, he scored two goals to surpass the 300-point plateau in his career.

And in his last 11 games, the Quebecer, who plays on the first trio with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, has 12 points. Colorado has breathed new life into his career. Because in Montreal, he didn’t seem like a guy who was happy to be there.

On the Sortie de zone podcast, Stéphane Waite shed a little more light on Drouin’s situation. According to the Tricolore’s former goaltending coach, the forward couldn’t play under that much pressure.

In Denver, he’s in the shadow of several stars like his two trio mates and Cale Makar.

It helps that, as of today, he’s the team’s sixth-highest scorer (20 points in 37 games).

The keys to his success lie not only in the change of city, but also in his health. In Montreal, he was often injured or ill. In six seasons, he never played a full campaign. In 2018-2019, he missed one game.

But with the Avalanche, he didn’t miss a game because of injury. He missed some because he was left out.

In his last year in Montreal, Waite could see that Jo was worried. He cared a lot about his production and what was said about him in the media. Athletes shouldn’t read or listen to what journalists write or say, but sometimes we can’t help it. And people in Montreal are so passionate that it’s hard to ignore them…

In short, the $825,000 contract he signed last July seems to have revived his career. Good luck to him, then, but if he keeps on playing like this, I’m sure he could land another NHL contract next year, with the Avalanche or elsewhere.

One thing’s for sure: we can forget about Montreal.

Remember that at the start of the season, we were wondering if this would be his last season in the Bettman circuit…

In Brief

– Ouch!

Connor Bedard went to the room after this hit from Brendan Smith.

(: @BR_OpenIce)pic.twitter.com/PBjW2ztgtT

– BarDown (@BarDown) January 6, 2024

– Yes, Jake Allen really does have it tough.

– Good luck to him.

– It’s encouraging.

Tuning in to history, together.

Our inaugural game reached 2.9 million Canadian viewers on New Year’s Day across our three Canadian national broadcast partners: CBC, Sportsnet, and TSN.
https://t.co/4XfdTTA6Ed pic.twitter.com/C8g9c9AEKB

– PWHL (@thepwhlofficial) January 5, 2024

– Well done.