Watson ‘in a great place now’

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This article was published 11/02/2021 (1916 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If given the chance, Winnipeg Jets fans would have poked needles into an Austin Watson voodoo doll for his rugged, belligerent style during a playoff series in early May 2018.

The veteran winger didn’t just strike an imposing figure, he tossed around his 6-4, 210-pound frame with regularity for the Nashville Predators and made the Jets pay.

During the seven-game set, he led all Predators with 19 hits and was the top shot blocker (7) among forwards while averaging nearly 15 minutes of ice time a night.

A pesky third line of Watson, centre Nick Bonino and left-winger Colton Sissons was a thorn in the Jets’ sides and, indeed, a high point for the Preds, who were, ultimately, bounced from the NHL postseason after a 5-1 home-ice defeat in Game 7.

The Michigan product, now suiting up with the Ottawa Senators, vividly recalls that edgy matchup between talented division rivals.

“I remember it was a great series. What’s crazy is some of the momentum swings in that series,” said Watson, 29, following the Senators morning skate Thursday. “I remember coming into Winnipeg for Game 3 and we took a 3-0 lead and then all of a sudden they get a couple of power plays and they get big Buff (Dustin Byfuglien) going and next thing you know (it’s 4-3 ) in Winnipeg’s favour.

“The crowd was great. It was really exciting stuff — just hard, physical hockey.”

Call it Watson’s bread and butter.

The 2010 first-round draft pick (18th overall) hasn’t built his seven-year career on glitzy statistics. Instead, he relies on playing a physical, close-checking brand of hockey, with an occasional goal or fight sprinkled in.

Entering the battle with the Jets, he had scored three goals and chipped in a pair of assists in 14 games in a bottom-six role for the struggling Sens.

Nothing in his new situation resembles the heady days with the Predators, yet he refuses to utter a discouraging word.

“It’s a different situation than what I’d been used to. In Nashville, we were a playoff team and top of the division every year. But I’m really enjoying it here. The group of guys is unbelievable and while we might not be getting the results that we want every night, you can see the team is getting better all the time and we’re playing some of our best hockey right now,” he said.

“I’ve just tried to bring that consistency on a daily basis, just to play the right way all the time, whether that’s the penalty kill or being reliable defensively, hard on the forecheck, or, when these games aren’t going in our favour, just continuing to put my head down and work hard. Just trying to lead by example.”

Life off the ice is terrific, he maintains – a positive turnaround from the tumult of July 2018 when he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of domestic assault and was subsequently given three months’ probation on the condition he seek counselling.

He was also suspended twice by the NHL for alcohol-related issues but rejoined the Predators in early 2019 and inked a three-year contract extension, with an annual average value of $1.5 million.

The Senators acquired him this past October in exchange for a fourth-round pick in the 2021 draft.

Watson and his partner, Jen, just moved into a new home in the nation’s capital, their daughter, Olivia, will be three in April and the couple is expecting their second child, also in April.

“As a human being, when you face different hardships or adversity in your life, there’s a couple of ways you can go. You can let it take you down or you can become better for it, and I think that’s what myself and Jen have tried to do. We’re in a great place now,” Watson said.

“If you think back a couple of years… when all that stuff was going on, there were tons of people ready to write us off. We just put our heads down and worked hard at it.”

The two-year anniversary of his sobriety was just weeks ago.

“If guys like myself have to go through these things publicly, that comes with the territory,” he said. “Hopefully. I can be an example in some sort of way for anybody else going through something, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.”

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @WFPJasonBell