LAS VEGAS | After everything that has been said and written about him over the past year, forward Justin Poirier can officially say mission accomplished: he was drafted by the Carolina Hurricanes in the fifth round on Saturday afternoon.
The 5-foot-7 forward has been the talk of the town this season. His scoring skills don’t lie, and he has 69 goals in 85 games, including the playoffs, to prove it this season.
But his small size and certain criticisms of his explosion on the skate meant that some teams were hesitant to claim him and that he was shunned from several important meetings this year, including the CHL Top Prospects Game and the NHL evaluation camp in Buffalo in early June.
But all that is now behind him since a team has decided to trust him.
“I was looking forward to hearing my name,” he said a few minutes after his selection. […] From the third round, I started to believe it. I felt like with the regular season and the series I had experienced, I had proven enough. A team believed in me, the Hurricanes, and my mission is to prove to others that they were wrong and to make them regret it.
“I kept believing in it”
Sitting in the stands, Poirier admitted to having been able to count on the support of his family to help him keep his spirits up despite the fact that his name continued not to be pronounced.
But he didn’t have to look far for inspiration since his brother, Jérémie, had experienced a similar situation in 2020. Classified as a first-round prospect, he ultimately had to wait until the middle of the third round before the Calgary Flames claimed him.
“I continued to believe in it and I was prepared for the possibility that I would slip because my brother had experienced it.”
He also made no secret of the fact that every time the Flames came to the microphone, his heart rate – and that of his brother – increased a little more than usual.
“Every time the Flames drafted, we were hoping. We never got the chance to play together because we’re four years apart. We’re more than just brothers, we have a magical relationship together. Now, I hope we play against each other one day, and hopefully we don’t fight!”
Massé also slides
Many expected that forward Maxim Massé would be selected either at the end of the first round or, for everyone, in the second round. Like Poirier, he too had to wait longer than expected when he was drafted at the start of the third round by the Anaheim Ducks.
Entering the season, Massé seemed firmly entrenched as a first-round pick, but an up-and-down season has caused his stock among scouts to plummet.
It was hard to predict, however, that he would wait this long to hear his name called.
“The fact that I slipped… yesterday I was a little disappointed,” he admitted. On the other hand, when I heard my name, I forgot everything else. Now I can just look to the future and use that as motivation.”
Advice from Ethan Gauthier
After the first round concluded on Friday night, Massé received a text message from a certain Ethan Gauthier who, almost exactly a year ago, found himself in the exact same situation as Massé.
After being ignored in the first round, Gauthier had to wait less time than Massé the next day, since he was claimed at the start of the second round by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
But, nonetheless, he too had experienced the disappointment of coming out empty-handed from the first night of the draft.
“He just told me that it doesn’t change much and when I heard my name, I was going to forget everything else. That’s not bad what happened. It really made me happy that he took the time to send me this message.”
