Avoiding penalties on Lemieux’s mind ahead of game against Canucks

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This article was published 12/09/2015 (3920 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PENTICTON, B.C. — If you ever thought at some point you’d like to be a fly on the wall for a conversation involving one of the NHL’s top agitators, Brendan Lemieux practically issued the invite on Saturday.

Lemieux’s not the pest/player with those NHL credentials, at least not yet, but the 19-year-old left-winger’s father Claude, the longtime NHLer and multiple Stanley Cup winner, certainly qualifies.

So how does that chat go between Winnipeg Jets prospect and father, mentor, advisor and agent?

“He’s the person I look up to the most,” Lemieux said after today’s Jets practice at the South Okanagan Events Centre. They meet the top prospects of the Vancouver Canucks here on Sunday afternoon (4 p.m. CT).

“I ask him what he thinks, how he thought I played, what he thinks I can do better. He kind of goes from there. He says, ‘I thought that was a good play, nice goal. Move on.’”

That would have been about Friday’s lone Jets marker in the first period in the team’s 3-1 tournament-opening loss to the Calgary Flames.

“He coached me back in the day, so nothing’s harder than that,” Lemieux said. “But he lets the coaches do their job. He doesn’t want to step in and tell me anything they wouldn’t tell me to do or overcorrect.

“But he knows my game, knows what I’m capable of and what I want to do. And he can give me constructive criticism to make me better.”

Coming off a 41-goal junior season with the OHL’s Barrie Colts, and having been moved to the Jets last February in the big trade with Buffalo, Lemieux is seen by some as a possibility soon, if not now, for the Jets.

He’s got grit, he’s got hands and he’s got no fear.

That was evident Friday night here, when there were some chippy elements to the game and Lemieux was right in the middle of all of it.

One might wonder whether that kind of agitating role will play well from a 19-year-old kid once it gets to NHL camp and exhibition games, to start.

“He (his dad) wants me to be smart,” Lemieux said. “This is a step up from junior. And then there’s another step when it comes to pre-season and then there’s another step when it comes to regular season. He knows that last night was a bit chippy and we’d call it junior-like. Sure there was chirping.

“But when it comes to the NHL, a 19-year-old, if I was to play, there’s not going to be much room for that. There are guys there, some of them there to enforce and some are there to play and there’s not a whole lot of talking going on in the NHL. There is chippiness, there is hard-nosed play and there are rivalries but my role, as a 19-year-old, will be to be good defensively, to contribute offensively when I can and to bring energy.

“He knows that and there is some agitating that comes with that, by the way I play and how hard I work, then so be it but I have to make sure I’m not costing the team.”

For Sunday’s game against the Canucks, Lemieux has one thought.

“Don’t take a penalty,” he said. “It comes. When you play the game hard, you’re going to take one or two. I had a lot of penalties last year (145 penalty-minutes) but I just want to play the right way. I want to win.

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“I’m the type of player that I’m not satisfied until we’re winning. I think our line, we’ve got to get our offence going, play a bit smarter in the neutral zone and defensive end so that we can get that offence going.

“So for me, keep doing what I’m doing and make sure I’m playing smart … and helping those guys do what they do best, which is carry pucks and make plays.”

Manitoba Moose coach Keith McCambridge, who’s handling the Jets prospects for this tournament, said he’s got similar advice for the Lemieux-Nic Petan-Nikolaj Ehlers line that was rather mediocre on Friday.

“When you have three dynamic players like that, well, Lemieux’s going to create separation from the puck, but sometimes they look for the plays that aren’t high-percentage plays because there’s so much skill on that line,” McCambridge said. “The advice would be to distribute the puck more, not look for the cute play at times. And to play more of a high-percentage game between the three of them.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca