Hamilton Bulldogs – McKeen's Hockey

Has Pateryn’s Window Closed?

Dan Kramer — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 14:49:52 +0000

It’s no secret that the Hamilton Bulldogs have gotten off to a disappointing start to the 2014-15 season. After overhauling a roster that severely underperformed last year, hopes were high that a team filled with a strong mix of veteran prowess and high potential prospects would lead the club back to the post-season. Yet while it’s still early, 17 games into the season, at 7-8-2 the club is just one point behind the 2013-14 edition with what should be a far superior line-up, and that team finished 13^th in the West, 9 points out of the final playoff spot.

Replacing an aging, underperforming Martin St. Pierre, an all effort, no results Mike Blunden, and a bust of a prospect in Louis Leblanc with an in-his-prime T.J. Hensick, recent NHL’ers in Eric Tangradi and Jake Dowell, and a fast-rising prospect in Charles Hudon should’ve immediately upgraded the offense. Add to that AHL stints from NHL calibre forwards like Michael Bournival and Drayson Bowman, and returning leaders on the upswing of their career in Gabriel Dumont, Sven Andrighetto and Christian Thomas, and the team should have come out of the gates blazing.

But they didn’t. One obvious absence from the year prior was Dustin Tokarski, with Joey MacDonald performing well enough to avoid the brunt of the blame, but hardly living up to the standards of the guy now backing up Carey Price in Montreal.

Then you look at the defense. The key players are back, though both Nathan Beaulieu and Jarred Tinordi have spent some time in Montreal, and it now seems like the former is there to stay. In their stead, you have a healthy Darren Dietz and Davis Drewiske right from the get-go, plus the return of Magnus Nygren and toughness from Joe Finley.

While many have decided that the improved roster means all heat should be placed on head coach Sylvain Lefebvre, there is also one key member of the back end not mentioned above, who remains with the team, but has been a shell of his former self rather than making the leap to the next level.

That player, of course, is Greg Pateryn, who entered the season with as good a chance as any to stick as a spare blueliner with the Canadiens, but has underwhelmed right from the onset of training camp. And this on the heels of signing a new two-year deal, the second half of which is one-way with NHL money guaranteed in a year in which he’ll no longer be waiver exempt.

(Photo credit: Brandon Taylor / Hamilton Bulldogs Hockey Club)

It wasn’t long ago when an older, less hyped Pateryn was significantly outperforming first round pedigrees Beaulieu and Tinordi as all three were rookies in Hamilton. At 6’2”, 222 lbs, Pateryn has the size Montreal had been looking for on the blueline, and he was the first of the trio to grow into the frame, and thus play the most physically. If that and his defensive positioning were his edges on Tinordi, he also developed a knack for forcing his point shots through traffic in front, putting him on par with Beaulieu in terms of scoring. His balanced, jack-of-all-trades skill set meant Lefebvre trusted him to play big minutes and employed him in all situations.

Pateryn’s play earned him a cup of coffee with the Canadiens in 2012-13, but while he spent time travelling with the team last year, he was not called upon to dress for any games. Still, his play continued to progress at the American Hockey League level, where his 15 goals in 68 games ranked second among league defensemen. He could very well have shared team MVP honours, officially bestowed upon Tokarski, as he was by far the most consistent and dependable member of the squad. This season? His first period powerplay marker in the team’s 15^th game was his first goal and only second point of the year.

“The guys were patting me on the back, and making jokes and stuff. It’s just one of those things where my shot is an asset of my game, and I got to be able to use it night in, night out. Tonight I got the monkey off my back, so hopefully good things come from this,” summarized the blueliner, as his contributions to an overtime win not only helped his own stat line, but also his team remain within striking distance of the .500 mark.

What’s been holding him back in his progression, in a word, is speed. His skating is one component of this, adequate for the American Hockey League but a strike against him when facing speedy NHL-calibre opposition. The piece he has more control to improve, however, is his decision-making speed on ice. This is also something he has a better grasp on at the AHL level, where you have a little more time to select a play, but even there, he has noticed opposition keying in on him, which has made it more difficult to produce. “It seems like guys know I can shoot the puck now, so I hear them on the ice saying, ‘one-timer, watch the shot,’ and stuff, so maybe they are coming after me a bit. To be effective from the point, you have to get open for those shots,” explained Pateryn on the adjustments he is trying to bring to his game. “I’m trying to keep my head up, making sure I know where guys are on the ice. So when I get the puck, I can just let it rip.”

If he is to make the jump to the Canadiens, he’ll need to further develop his awareness and confidence in following his instincts to make the correct play as soon as it becomes available. He needs to keep his game simple to avoid bobbling pucks or turning them over.

Has coaching impacted his game? One could argue it isn’t helped. Michel Therrien was quite stern in his regards at the end of training camp, and then a player who spent most of the last two seasons paired with either Beaulieu or Tinordi has been shuffled through a variety of partners by his Sylvain Lefebvre this season.

Pateryn, however, isn’t looking for excuses. “Guys are always moving up and down. It doesn’t matter who you’re going to play with. You gotta be ready night in, night out,” he assured. Still, finding a stable, reliable compliment to his style might be what he needs to continue developing. Which he may finally have, if Montreal’s acquisition of Sergei Gonchar means Tinordi will spend most of his time in Canada’s Steeltown. And Pateryn would welcome the stability. “[Jarred and I] played together in the past, so we have some chemistry already.”

For Pateryn, while it may not be a contract year, this could very well be a career-defining season. At age 24, he has clearly been leapfrogged by Beaulieu and Tinordi in team’s depth chart, and risks to have Darren Dietz and Magnus Nygren fly past him as well. As a waiver-eligible player on a one-way deal next season, he’ll no longer be compared to the prospects in this group, but fairly assessed against any journeyman veterans who could just as easily fill an organizational depth and leadership role. At this stage, he seems destined to follow in the footsteps of a Frederic St. Denis or Dan Jancevski. His window to “make it,” at least with this organization, is quickly closing, and it’s on him to prove he’s worthy of forcing Marc Bergevin to clear a spot for him with the big team.

Follow Dan on Twitter @DanKramerHabs

Condon Emerging as #3 Goaltender in Habs’ System

Dan Kramer — Tue, 18 Nov 2014 22:20:28 +0000

If I told you that, coming into Sunday’s game against the Rochester Americans, the goaltender for the Hamilton Bulldogs had a .928 save percentage and 2.34 GAA so far this season, your response might be, “Sure. Joey MacDonald is an experienced and fairly proven NHL-calibre back-up netminder, so he should be a little too good for the AHL.”

But the man in question isn’t, in fact, Joey MacDonald. This netminder, though 24 years of age, was never drafted, and is in only his first season at the American Hockey League level. While questions about Montreal’s more hyped goaltending prospect Zach Fucale have arisen with his ballooning goals against average and save percentage this season, Mike Condon has quickly thrown his name into the mix if the Canadiens should ever need reinforcements at the position.

(Photo credit: Brandon Taylor / Hamilton Bulldogs Hockey Club)

Condon, a native of Needham, Massachusetts, went undrafted despite posting strong numbers in two seasons with Belmont Hill High of the USHL. His career continued at Princeton University, where his statistics improved every season, but again he received little attention, due largely to playing only 29 games total through his first three seasons with the Tigers. Finally given the starter role in his senior year, Condon’s sparkling .923 save percentage and 2.48 goals against average earned him tryouts with the ECHL’s Ontario Reign and AHL’s Houston Aeros.

But when it came time to signing his full-time deal, the goalie opted for the two-year entry-level contract tendered by the Montreal Canadiens. A peculiar decision perhaps when you consider it meant slotting behind all of Carey Price, Peter Budaj, Dustin Tokarski, and arguably Robert Mayer in the organization’s depth chart, but as Condon told The Trentonian last season, it served as a motivator for him, forcing him to work harder knowing he would constantly be in competition for playing time..

The crowd in front of him meant he spent his first pro season with the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers, finishing among the league’s leaders with a .931 save percentage and 2.18 GAA in the regular season, continuing his success into the playoffs with a .926 save percentage and 2.50 GAA on a 10-game drive. With nothing left to prove at that level, the Canadiens made room for Condon in the AHL by first terminating Robert Mayer’s contract, and then opting to keep Dustin Tokarski in Montreal by trading Peter Budaj.

This new challenge, however, also meant Condon would once again have to earn every start, as he was penciled in as a clear second fiddle to veteran Joey MacDonald on the Hamilton Bulldogs’ 2014-15 roster.

“Whenever you move up a level, the shots are that much quicker. The margin for error is that much smaller. You can be exposed a lot easier. It’s definitely a step up [from the ECHL],” summarized the keeper during a post-game scrum in Hamilton, conscious of the improvements needed in his own game. “I love playing with Joey Mac; he’s a great partner. And he has a lot of experience that I can learn from.”

Truthfully, both netminders had big shoes to fill as Tokarski’s graduation left the ‘Dogs without their most valuable player from the year prior. But MacDonald, with his 46 games of NHL experience over the past three years, should have been more than capable. Should turned out to be the operative word, as though he wasn’t entirely to blame, a roster stacked with talent up front and plenty of depth on defense got out to a 4-7-2 start to the season.

While it’s not uncommon for a coach to split his goaltenders in a back-to-back situation, MacDonald was outduelled by rookie St. John’s starter Connor Hellebuyck, and so Sylvain Lefebvre turned to Condon to tend goal in the rematch. The move paid off, as the American registered is second win of the year, doing enough to outlast another strong effort from Hellebuyck, and getting Hamilton back to within two games of the .500 mark.

Condon is a fundamentally strong first save goaltender. At 6’2” and just shy of 200 lbs, he has the size that teams are increasingly seeking in netminders, but his biggest strength is down low with lightning quick reflexes in his legs making kick pad saves his typical weapon of choice. At the other end of the spectrum, rebound control is the area he most needs to improve upon. He has an uncanny ability to have deflected pucks land near him, but he still struggles to find them thereafter, forced to track and smother them rather than absorb the initial attempts.

If trends continue as they have, it’ll be interesting to see how Lefebvre manages his netminders the rest of this season. The win against the Ice Caps led to Condon getting consecutive starts for the second time this season, and though he was a part of Hamilton blowing a 4-1 lead, he came up big late to force overtime, and ended up recording a second straight win.

It’s not that MacDonald has been terrible, but he has failed to make the big save with any kind of frequency, and has been guilty of momentum-shifting softies in some instances as well. We’ve already seen somewhat of an balancing of playing time between the two, but Hamilton’s bench boss is typically hesitant to anoint a true starter, as evidenced last year when Tokarski should’ve been the obvious #1 over Mayer, but which wasn’t always the case in the coach’s rotation. Based on their play so far, Condon has earned the opportunity to get into more game action than his counterpart, but it may take more convincing for the staff to supplant an established veteran with a rookie.

The Canadiens will also have a decision to make a year from now, as Fucale will begin his professional career, and the ideal would be to have an established veteran in the AHL to mentor him. Will Condon with his one year in the league be a better choice because of his NHL upside as a possible future back-up? Or will he leave the organization for somewhere with a clearer path to the big league?

“Every year is an opportunity to show yourself. Whether it’s practice every day at the rink, every game… I try not to think about that stuff too much. You can go crazy,” the goalie said of his aspirations for this year and beyond. “One day at a time, and I’m just happy to be here.” And if he can carry on at his current level of play, his teammates and coaches will be very happy he’s here as well.

Follow Dan on Twitter @DanKramerHabs