Delayed but not dismayed

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This article was published 29/09/2016 (3325 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

While most future NHLers were starting their rookie season in junior at 16, the Winnipeg Jets prospect Brandon Tanev was stepping away from the game he loved.

In fact, if he didn’t have his brother — Vancouver Canucks defenceman Chris Tanev — blazing a trail before him, it’s unlikely Brandon would be mentioned in the same breath as the National Hockey League.

“(Chris) has been in the league now for a couple years and just seeing him grow has really echoed onto me in many ways,” Tanev, 24, said from his locker room stall Wednesday at the MTS Iceplex. “I look up to him in many ways. His help has been unbelievable.”

The duo’s curse wasn’t their skill — both possessed what it took to move up the ranks throughout their childhood years. Instead, what stunted their progression was their diminutive stature during their mid-teens — both closer to the five-foot mark than the much more desirable and seemingly mandatory six-foot region.

So the younger Tanev took a three-year hiatus from the game, choosing to attend high school and wait and hope for the day he woke up several inches taller.

“I wasn’t physically mature yet and I wasn’t able to make any of the Triple-A teams that I played for growing up,” Tanev said.

As with brother Chris, Tanev would eventually hit the growth spurt he needed to step back onto the ice with a purpose.

In 2010, Tanev, then 19, joined the Junior B ranks with the Markham Waxers in the Ontario Junior Hockey League. At the same time, current Providence College head coach Nate Leaman — then at Union College — had been keeping tabs on the now 6-0, 180-pound left-winger.

Those tabs turned into a scholarship for the Toronto native when Leaman took over the reins with at Providence in 2011. After playing one year in the British Columbia Hockey League with the Surrey Eagles, Tanev joined the Providence College Friars, recording 11 points in 33 games in his freshman season.

“We went out and watched him — two or three games — and we really liked him.” Leaman said in a telephone interview from Rhode Island on Wednesday morning. “His freshman year was an adjustment, like it is for most guys, but he just kept improving and improving.”

Leaman said Tanev’s skills became game-changing over time, perhaps no more apparent than in the NCAA national championship game against Boston College April 11, 2015.

With just more than six minutes remaining in a 3-3 hockey game, Tanev picked up a loose puck just behind his centreman at the right faceoff dot, surged into the slot and scored the game-winning goal just under the bar in the left-hand corner of the net. Providence were national champions for the first time.

“It was unbelievable, you can’t replace that type of feeling. It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my lifetime,” Tanev said. “At the same time, what that game meant for our school, Providence College, the community, it was the biggest game in the school’s history. I know each one of us on that team was glad to wear that jersey.”

Leaman said there weren’t too many nights where NHL teams didn’t want a word with Tanev in the season after, his senior year.

Winnipeg was one of those teams.

Tanev attended several NHL development camps but eventually signed a one-year, two-way pact with the Jets after his final game with Providence this spring.

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“It was a proud moment for my family and I,” said Tanev, who played three games with the Jets on their western road swing that closed out the 2015-16 season.

Leaman feels certain Tanev has the desirables of an NHL player, pointing to his 15-goal, 28-point senior season before signing with the big club.

“Definitely,” he said. “He was a pretty elite player at this level.

“The one thing that I was always amazed by with Brandon was that there were no off days for him. Because of his energy level and his elite skating, there were very few days he wasn’t the fastest going player on the ice. I can think of maybe just one or two games were he looked tired.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @scottbilleck

Scott Billeck
Reporter

Scott Billeck is a general assignment reporter for the Free Press. A Creative Communications graduate from Red River College, Scott has more than a decade’s worth of experience covering hockey, football and global pandemics. He joined the Free Press in 2024.  Read more about Scott.

Every piece of reporting Scott produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.