October 20, 2011
Posted in Alberta Edition, Major Junior
By Mark Janzen /
In one hat-toss-inducing sweep, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins became, if he wasn’t already, the most popular 18-year-old in Edmonton.
Under the bright lights of Hockey Night in Canada and playing the Vancouver Canucks, Nugent-Hopkins notched his first National Hockey League hat trick in only his third NHL game and, with the folks on CBC’s After Hours gushing over the Burnaby, B.C. boy like they were girls meeting Zach Morris for the first time, the Edmonton Oilers’ first overall selection in the 2011 draft was thrust directly into the centre stage spotlight.
Nugent-Hopkins followed that effort with an assist against Nashville two nights later and now, just four games into his NHL career, he already has five points and is leading the young Oilers in scoring. And in doing so, all the chatter around Edmonton has taken a dramatic, and exciting, twist.
Coming into this year’s training camp in Edmonton, everyone in the Alberta capital was asking the question, will Nugent-Hopkins stay with the Oilers, this year?
Now, the question has become, how will Nugent-Hopkins not stay with the Oilers, this year?
Other than his early season struggles in the faceoff dot – although after winning only 18.4 per cent of his draws in his first three games he seemed to remedy the problem in his fourth game by winning 42.0 per cent of his faceoffs against Nashville – there hasn’t been much in his game to criticize.
Centering a line with Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, Edmonton’s top line of youngsters has been nothing short of dominant. In four games, the trio has combined for five goals, seven assists, 38 shots and is a plus-6. And in the middle of it all has been Nugent-Hopkins.
But while the strong start has the City of Champions buzzing and salivating with what might be on the horizon, the Red Deer Rebels-product is about as humble and unassuming as one could be after the show he’s put on to date.
He’s taking nothing for granted and following his performance against Vancouver, he was all business.
“This morning I woke up and just kind of forgot about (Saturday) night,” he said. “It was pretty exciting but I’m still disappointed we didn’t get the win.
“It’s all very exciting but there are a lot of other little things I have to do to get a definite spot on the team. I’m still going to be working as hard as I can at both end of the rink. I’m taking it one game at a time, using the nine games as motivation.
The nine games he speaks of is the point at which Edmonton has to decide whether it wants to send Nugent-Hopkins back to junior or not.
At this stage, Red Deer isn’t counting on it.
And neither is the city of Edmonton.
Four games may be a small sample size but at this rate, you can bet your Saved by the Bell box set that fans will be chanting Nugent-Hopkins in Rexall Place all year.
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