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Perseverance paying off for Jets’ D-man Brouillette

D-man has taken long road to NHL

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If you're one of those hockey fans who loves a good underdog tale and appreciates the guy who overcomes long odds and big obstacles in pursuit of a dream, you're going to love Julien Brouillette.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/12/2014 (3943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If you’re one of those hockey fans who loves a good underdog tale and appreciates the guy who overcomes long odds and big obstacles in pursuit of a dream, you’re going to love Julien Brouillette.

 

Although Brouillette has been a member of the Winnipeg Jets since being called up from the St. John’s IceCaps on Dec. 4, it wasn’t until Thursday — when it appeared for a few fleeting hours that he was going to crack the club’s game-day roster — that attention turned to the unique back story that is Brouillette.

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
Winnipeg Jets defencemen Julien Brouillette
JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Winnipeg Jets defencemen Julien Brouillette

While it no longer appears Brouillette will play for the Jets tonight at the MTS Centre against the Boston Bruins — that scenario likely evaporated when the Jets acquired Jay Harrison from Carolina in a trade Thursday afternoon — his story is still worth knowing.

For starters, Brouillette’s going to be the seventh defenceman in these parts for at least the foreseeable future. Second, the way Jets defencemen have been falling lately, Brouillette could be dressing in no time. And finally, dude just has a real interesting hockey story.

After playing the first seven seasons of his career in the minors — including the first three seasons almost entirely in the lowly ECHL– Brouillette got his first taste of the NHL last season when the Washington Capitals called him up for a 10-game stint at the ripe old age of 27.

It is so unusual to be a first-time call-up at that advanced age that Brouillette has the distinction of being among a handful of players to have played in the NHL but never had a rookie season. Under league rules, anyone over the age of 26 cannot be considered a rookie, no matter how few games they previously played.

Brouillette’s taste of the big league didn’t last long, however, and he found himself back in the AHL this fall after the Jets signed him as a free agent during the off-season and assigned him to St. John’s. And that’s where Brouillette’s underdog tale might have ended were it not for a sudden spate of injuries that has Winnipeg’s top four defencemen on the shelf right now.

With Toby Enstrom, Zach Bogosian, Jacob Trouba and Mark Stuart out with injuries, Brouillette is going to be in town for awhile, giving the Jets some much needed blue-line insurance.

“I started at the bottom and worked my way up,” said Brouillette, a native of Laval, Que. “There’s one or two or three stories a year about those types of players who did it.

“I tended to believe that if I did the right thing every single time I was going to be rewarded. It took seven years — maybe a few more years than people expected — but I’m happy to have it.”

Paul Maurice knows better than most what Brouillette has gone through to achieve his dream. The Jets head coach had his own pro hockey career derailed when he suffered a career-ending eye injury during a charity hockey game while he was a member of the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires.

Maurice has defied the odds ever since, coaching more than 1,000 games despite his abbreviated playing career.

“When you ride the bus that long,” said Maurice, “you go through a lot of days where you wonder if this day ever comes. And when it does, they bring that enthusiasm and excitement and value to it.

“I learned to appreciate the National Hockey League in a different way myself. You spend some time in other leagues and you realize what a gift is is to be here and be around these kinds of athletes and these kind of professionals…

“You always like to see those kind of guys get a crack at it.”

So what kind of player is Brouillette? Nothing fancy, he says.

“People might say I might not be the best of everything, but I can do a bit of everything,” says Brouillette. “And bottom line is, consistency is what the coaching staff usually looks for.”

All of which means he will be a perfect fit in a blue-collar Jets dressing room, says Maurice. “That puts him in good standing with our group,” said Maurice. “We don’t have a lot of one-dimensional players on our back end… They can all play and play a solid game.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek

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