Advertisement

2012 MasterCard Memorial Cup: Edmonton Oil Kings’ Laurent Brossoit takes loss hard

SHAWINIGAN, Que. — The question with Laurent Brossoit is whether he heads home with some extra baggage.

Who really knows how falling short of spurring his team to greater heights in a widely watched tournament really affects a young goaltender. It's too soon to know if Brossoit having the lowest save percentage of any MasterCard Memorial Cup goalie for the Edmonton Oil Kings, the first team to fly home, shows he's not cut out for Team Canada. It does lend itself to no end of snarky Tweets about how he's just a perfect fit for a program whose netminding has not bailed it out, lo, these past three world junior tourneys. But come on, the selection camp is still six months away and funny thing, teenagers age.

One week ago, Brossoit had so much hype you would half-wonder if he landed at Montreal's Dorval Airport without a plane. The 19-year-old was the Western Hockey League's playoff MVP with a 2.04 average and .933 save percentage. Instead of finishing by hoisting the Memorial Cup, he was just glad he finished up in Edmonton's 6-1 tiebreaker-game loss to the Shawinigan Cataractes. It's a small sample, but Brossoit's 4.04 average and .871 save percentage looked like something belonging to a 1980s Smythe Division goalie, not one in 2012.

"I don't feel like I was the reason we were the first team out, I just feel like that momentum-builder save for a game is huge and I just feel that I didn't provide that," Brossoit said in a voice that wouldn't get you shushed at the library. "It's a [crappy] feeling."

"You go through such a long season, you see all this success," the Calgary Flames prospect added. "Then you come out here, and it almost feels like it doesn't even matter. It feels like it just wipes you clean. I'm just trying to keep my head up."

The way it seems to work in this country with a teenaged goalie is either you're an unknown or associated with one unfortunate event. Just ask Mark Visentin. It's important to keep in mind that there wasn't much mention outside Edmonton prior to the playoffs about Brossoit being a Team Canada candidate. So in the big picture it's still a win for the Surrey, B.C., native.

"When you have a good run like this it puts you on the radar and I'm glad it does, but I feel there's more that [the Oil Kings] can win and I don't think that's a nice feeling to have."

The Oil Kings, it must be said, didn't get the job gone in whole. New York Rangers fourth-rounder Michael St. Croix, he of the team-record 105-point season, did not score in the tournament. Edmonton Oilers prospect Kristians Pelss ended up on the fourth line by tourney's end. Turnovers were a team-wide issue.

But the country's armchair world junior scouts aren't going to ponder what the loss says about St. Croix or likely NHL first-rounder Griffin Reinhart to the same extent they will with Brossoit. The goalie's the one who has to be the glue of his team. So everyone will wonder how Brossoit takes this to heart.

Reinhart nodded when asked if the season-ending loss is something he'll wait for Brossoit to bring up when they meet up during the summer.

"I'm sure we'll see each other and talk about it, but right now it's something we want to move on from," he said.

An off-day Wednesday did nothing to fix Edmonton's fragile state. The youngest team in the tourney (average age: 17.5) got down 2-0 on two goals Brossoit couldn't do much about, a Yannick Veilleux tip-in and a Morgan Ellis power-play salvo on a slapshot. The margin hit 4-0 by the three-minute mark of the second.

'He's going to have a great pro career'

So why didn't Laxdal yank Brossoit to spare him, or give 17-year-old backup Tristan Jarry a taste of the Memorial Cup? Laxdal thought Brossoit needed to finish what he started. As well, there were 18 Oil Kings skaters who were likely just as frustrated, but had to keep at it.

"It's all about the team," Laxdal said. "The score was 2-0, we had a turnover end up in our net on the third goal. L.B.'s been outstanding, his growth this year has been instrumental to our success. You don't win unless you have great goaltending. This is a great experience for him. He's got another year coming back as a 19-year-old, he's got Tristan Jarry pushing him, he's going to have a great pro career.

"Before you succeed, you have to stumble. Yeah, we won the Western Hockey League, but our goal next year is to win the Memorial Cup. Next year, there'll be more hunger."

Brossoit did appear to gaze at the Oil Kings bench after the Cataractes went up 4-0. During a TV timeout, Brossoit, who normally stays in his crease during stoppages, skated to around his own blueline and glanced at the bench.

By the end, he was glad he wasn't allowed to pull the chute. His body language looked more positive than it had in the first 40 minutes. Of course, five goals down in the last game of the year is lowest of low-leverage situations. Have fun, everyone, determining what it says about Brossoit's chance of being a money goalie next December in Ufa, Russia.

"I was glad that I stayed in," Brossoit said. "After it got kind of ridiculous out there, I just wanted to play for the guys on the team. They showed so much support. They knew I was having a rough time."

— with files from Mike Sanderson

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Contact him at neatesager@yahoo.ca and follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.