When Adam Gaudette scored a beautiful backhand goal on the power play Thursday night against the Philadelphia Flyers, it gave him seven goals in 15 appearances.
Entering Saturday night’s game against Carolina, Gaudette led the entire league with 2.63 goals per 60 minutes of ice time (as per NaturalStatTrick, minimum 100 minutes played). Extrapolating that production over the team’s remaining 66 games, Gaudette would be projected to score 30.8 goals.
It is an incredible start to a season for Gaudette, a player who came to Senators training camp without any guarantee he would be an NHL regular. After scoring 44 goals with the St. Louis Blues’ AHL affiliate in Springfield last season, Gaudette was coming off his best professional season, just looking for an opportunity.
Ottawa provided it.
Given his history with head coach Travis Green and the uncertainties of the roster composition at the bottom of the lineup, the unrestricted free agent rolled the dice, signing a one-year, two-way contract worth $775,000.
The only thing more impressive than Gaudette’s production right now is the confidence he carries when talking about his early success.
“I feel good. (My success may be) unanticipated for some people, but this is my goal and what I expect for myself,” Gaudette relayed while cracking a smile. “Not just to score goals like that but to be reliable in all aspects of the game and play the right way. In doing that, the chances come, and you’ve got to bury them.”
His words are not the product of a cocky young upstart who is just on an unsustainable heater. Gaudette presents himself as a mature but self-assured 28-year-old who recognizes and takes pride in his team’s (and his line’s) strong two-way play that manufactures offence.
“The game’s definitely slowed down for me,” said Gaudette. “Doing the right things puts you in a good spot. If you’re in a good spot defensively, it puts you in a good spot offensively.
“I think it was definitely a learning curve for a few years, and now, as I get older and more mature, it’s definitely slowing down, and I’m feeling really comfortable out there.”
As effective and disruptive as linemates Zack MacEwen and Nick Cousins have been, Gaudette is not just some pinball flipper in the offensive zone who is waiting for his linemates to do all the dirty work.
“I wouldn’t say let them do it because you know my game is getting on the forecheck and disrupt too,” Gaudette explained. “My game plan is to move my feet, play physically, and win my face-offs, and good things will happen.
“I want to be solid in the defensive zone and not give up chances. I don’t worry about the offensive side because, if I get a chance, I feel good about my odds of putting it in the net. As long as I’m doing the other things well, the points will come.”
The points have come, but almost as importantly, the Senators’ fourth line is taking care of business. In the 81 minutes and 36 seconds the Cousins-Gaudette-MacEwen line has played at five-on-five, the Senators have dominated the opposition.
When that trio has been on the ice, the Senators have generated 58.92 percent of the shots (CF%), 56.53 percent of the shots on goal (SF%), 64.80 percent of the total goals (GF%), and 56.57 percent of the expected goals (xGF%) per Evolving-Hockey. Without question, they have been one of the most effective fourth lines in the NHL this season.
“It’s just the feel of the game, and our structure allows us to get into spots where it opens up around the net,” said Gaudette explaining his line’s success. “Playing with these two guys, (Cousins) and (MacEwen) on my line, they create a lot of space out there because they’re physical and they play hard.
“It allows me to get to open spaces, and that’s a great complement to have on the line. (The game) is quick, so lots of shots through traffic, and that’s what I like. I like to shoot under sticks and through legs with a little bit of a screen. I always worked on pulling and shooting or pushing and shooting to change the angle. I think it’s dangerous, especially from the tops of the circles down, when you get a little bit of traffic. You can thread it underneath a few inches of space without the goalie seeing it.”
When musing about early-season surprises for the Senators, it is easy to reminisce about Brandon Bochenski’s 2005-06 preseason. Unfortunately for the mayor of Grand Forks, North Dakota, his success never carried into the regular season. To come up with a player who joined the Senators and had that early success like Adam Gaudette, you would have to go back a little further.
It was the summer of 1998 when Andreas Johansson left the Pittsburgh Penguins. The winger was coming off a nondescript season with the Penguins, in which he contributed five goals and ten assists on a relatively stacked squad.
Those 1997-98 Penguins ended the season with 98 points, finishing first in the Northeast Division.
Like Adam Gaudette, Johansson was just looking for an opportunity.
“Well, first of all, when I left Pittsburgh, I considered myself a rookie even though it was my third year in North America,” recalled Johansson. “But, I was in Pittsburgh, and it was tough to get ice time there with all the superstars.
“I was looking for an opportunity, and Ottawa presented me with one. I went to camp on a tryout. Only a few people know that. I knew they were looking for one player to take a spot in a top-six role. That was the opening for me.”
Johansson called his good friend, Daniel Alfredsson, asking to stay at his house to create some comfort and adjust to Ottawa while he was in training camp.
“So I told (Daniel Alfredsson), I was good friends with Alfie already, ‘I am going to come in early to Ottawa. Can I stay in your house? I’m going to make sure I’m ready to do this.’ I came into camp flying. I got a good start. I was scoring a lot of goals in preseason and then I made a team.”
Johansson obviously made a favourable impression in camp because he not only made the team, but he began the season on a skill line with Daniel Alfredsson and Vinny Prospal. He even earned some time on the Senators’ second power play unit.
“Vinny Prospal was pretty much my center for all the games I played,” Johansson reminisced. “I got hurt with a knee injury towards the end of the season and Alfie had an injury, too, so he wasn’t in the lineup the whole year, I remember, but he was (the other winger) when he was healthy.
“We had Steve Leach in the lineup. We had different wingers, me and Vinny, throughout the year. On the power play I remember I played with Vinny and Alfie, Jason York and I think it was Igor Kravchuk. That was our power play.”
The results were immediate. Johansson scored nine goals in the team’s first 20 games and after 40 games, that number had climbed to 16 tallies.
“I was so focused on (my performance),” Johansson said. “Obviously, I got off to a flying start. I remember I scored in the first home game against Nashville actually and after that I took off.
“I had so much energy. Jacques Martin was great to me. He only gave me two or three things that I was supposed to do. That was easy to focus on and if I did what he asked, he would play me. I was using my speed, drive wide and shoot the puck. That’s all he told me. It was so easy. I remember that. I remember that going to the rink and playing at home. The atmosphere in the arena was unbelievable. We had a good year. We had a good regular season. Better than most were expecting from us. We lost in the playoffs. Enjoying life. Living there. People. There were so many good things about it. Practice was high pace, which I liked. Which suited my game. Everything was high tempo. We played a high tempo game.”
I reached out to Johansson’s teammate, Jason York, to provide some insights into what made Johansson such a good story.
“The biggest reason (Johansson) scored 20 or more twice, check out who was on his team,” York jokingly recalled. “Yours truly! The Yorkie Rule of Players is that they are at their best when I’m on their team and hanging out off the ice with them. The effects can’t be understated.
“But, as a player, Johansson was very skilled. He was a great skater with a good shot. I think he was really happy and confident in his situation and role with Ottawa. We had a really tight team off the ice, and AJ was really well-liked.”
Johansson finished the season with 21 goals and 37 points while averaging 14:39 of ice time per game. After his torrid start, the winger only tallied five in the team’s final 29 games – a reflection of the knee injury he was dealing with at the time.
The only thing Johansson recalled more fondly than this stretch of hockey was his love for the city of Ottawa.
“I loved it, and I was almost crying when I got traded that summer when Jacques Martin called me, actually,” said Johansson. “I was in my home town with my mother. I will never forget that call because I felt that after battling for a few years looking to find my way in the NHL, I was home.
“Ottawa felt sweet. All the teammates were great, but I also felt at home. When I got traded to Tampa, it was actually Rick Dudley who wanted to bring me with him when he moved to management in Tampa. I got traded for Rob Zamuner. That took a toll on me, actually; I wasn’t happy.”
Johansson would play four more NHL seasons before returning to Europe to extend his career. After leaving Ottawa, a highlight was another 20-goal campaign with the Nashville Predators during the 2002-03 season.
“I had some good years,” Johansson recalled about his post-Ottawa career. “I played well in New York, I played well in Nashville. But my bad luck was that I had a bunch of injuries, like bad ones where I broke an arm, or I broke a leg.
“Every time I was going really good, I got an injury. It was crazy. I’m not the only one that goes through that, but I battled through it and I played a decent amount of time. So it worked out.”
Interestingly, the Senators connection has extended into Johansson’s post-playing career. He is currently the co-owner of the Super10 Sports Agency based out of Sweden. He is a fully licensed agent alongside his childhood friend and former Senator teammate, Andreas Dackell.
Johansson has always taken an interest in helping young players develop. The goal of his company is to provide players with mentorship and services to help them fulfill their professional hockey aspirations.
If anyone knows about maximizing experiences and believing in oneself, it is Johansson and Gaudette. Johansson used Ottawa as a launching point to become an NHL regular who likely would have had a longer, more productive career with better luck and health.
Adam Gaudette has the same opportunity now with Ottawa. As an impending unrestricted free agent, if he can continue his strong play, he can parlay that into money and security.
The question is, can he?
“No matter where you play, you need power play time,” explained Jason York, who sees the similarities between Johansson and Gaudette. “The coaches need to believe in you if you’re going to score 20 or more.
“If you look at Gaudette and why he’s scoring. He’s got a guy in Travis Green who believes in him. It is so important as a player when you have a coach who believes in you. Confidence is everything.”
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