Lemieux Showing He Deserves More Opportunities

Last night the Hurricanes played a great road game and were able to come out of Philadelphia with an important Metro Division victory. The Flyers had beaten the Canes at PNC Arena earlier in the month. One of the four goal scorers was Brendan Lemieux.

This was just the second game played for Lemieux in the month of November. With Andrei Svechnikov out with an illness, the Denver native had a chance to play his former team. Last season, he played 18 games with the Flyers and scored 2 goals. The goal last night matched that output in half the games played.

After the initial summer signings of Dmitry Orlov and Michael Bunting, the focus for general manager, Don Waddell was on providing depth at forward and defense. Lemieux was one of these depth signings at the end of the summer.

A bit of a journeyman at a young age, Lemieux was a second round draft choice in 2014.

A reason for depth is to prevent a drop off after an injury but another reason is to create competition among the group. It is time for this group to stop being comfortable and look behind for challengers to take ice time and playing time.

Every player on the bottom of the forwards group has brought unique skillsets but you never know what you have if you don’t let everyone have a shot at playing.

A player like Jack Drury has gotten plenty of chances over the last year. It is time to see what a player like Lemieux can bring to the rest of the group. Drury can also take some time to review his game and understand better from a different look.

The problem with the 27-year-old is that he can go off the wall occasionally and forget about the hockey part of his job. When he does have opportunities around the net, he has shown the skill set that made him a 31st overall draft choice.

The physicality and willingness to drop the gloves will surely be in the opponent’s mind and help the protection of the top line players but Lemieux offers much more than that.

The luxury of the roster being built with depth is that if Lemieux does not perform, Drury can get another shot or some other role player waiting in the wing.