Nic Trick: When one of the season's best offensive performances came from the most unexpected person

Photo from Anaheim Ducks official Twitter.

One of the best parts about sports are the underdogs coming out of nowhere. Yes, they are playing in the highest professional league on the planet and could torch even the best rec league players without letting their heart rate get above 80 BPM. But compared to their colleagues across the league, these players are usually fulfilling a limited role, either on the bench to fill a roster spot or for a specific purpose within a game.

Nicolas Deslauriers fits the specific purpose slot perfectly for the Anaheim Ducks. He has a grand total of 62 points in 376 career NHL games. He has 355 total penalty minutes since his debut in 2013-14 and has the most fighting majors in the NHL over the last two seasons. It’s clear that the 29-year-old left winger’s primary responsibility has been to rearrange one of his opponent’s faces if they so much as breathe at a team’s top young prospect or star player (or in Brad Marchand’s case, seductively licking his lips wanting just a taste of sweet NHL sweat).

He’s doesn’t exactly fit the role of an “enforcer”, a guy who does not have any particularly good hockey skills other than funneling testosterone to their fists. Deslauriers isn’t particularly skilled, but he’s a very good skater who regularly wins races to the puck. With rare exceptions, no enforcers even had that skill.

Yet it’s safe to say that no one, least of all the fans, expect the guy leading the lead in fights with only six goals on the year to suddenly explode in an offensive rampage on a given night. But life is weird, unexpected, and often ridiculously dumb. I mean that in the best way possible.

The game on March 10th against the Ottawa Senators was a showdown between two titans…of losing…quite possibly tanking…because hoping for the playoffs when you’re in the bottom five teams of the league is like Dr. Oz hoping he’ll get a Nobel Peace Prize in medicine. This game was shaping up to be one of the premier matchups to #PlayLikeDerriereForLafreniere. Fans everywhere waited in breathless anticipation to turn the channel on their TV to something more palatable.

The Ducks were having none of that.

Just 45 seconds after Jakob Silfverberg gave Anaheim a quick 1-0 lead two minutes in the game, Deslauriers roofed a smooth saucer pass from Carter Rowney as he skated backwards to create separation from his defender. It was a nice play, but Deslauriers had six goals on the year, so it’s not like this was unheard of.

The next eight and a half minutes had no score, but saw two teams with AHL-caliber defense exchange scoring chance after scoring chance.

Now, with the fourth line on the ice and Deslauriers rushing up ice in the neutral zone, he fired a pass to Carter Rowney on the other side of the rink. Rowney found Deslauriers back in the slot with no defensive coverage and sent the puck back to him. He loaded up and one-timed it into the open half of the net for his second of the period. It was his first multi-goal game since April 5th, 2018 with the Montreal Canadiens. The thoughts of Ducks fans became a swirling vortex of confusion and anticipation – what if he could do it? Is this real life?

Just 30 seconds later, fantasy became reality. David Backes won a face off in the offensive zone back to Deslauriers. The winger fired a shot up high that glanced off of Ottawa goaltender Marcus Högberg’s mask and into the net. A natural hat trick, three goals in a row by the same player. He had officially achieved maximum grit with his first career three-goal game.

Honda Center blew its roof off and hats came flying onto the ice, the Ducks faithful relishing in a joyous moment from an unexpected source in the late episodes of a season devoid of much happiness. Deslauriers had firmly established himself as a grinder who was not expected to contribute much in the way of offense. But in just over nine minutes, he went from supporting role player to one of the best stories of the 2019-20 Anaheim Ducks season.

“When I scored two, I think it was just luck,” Deslauriers told reporters after the game. “It happened to me once, maybe two years ago. It was kind of those feelings I had telling me to shoot the puck. It might take me another five games to put a puck on net. You can’t know what will happen but I’m happy it did.”

If the fans had fun watching the feat, one can only imagine how Deslauriers felt.

“It’s just surprise,” he said. “Having such a good group of guys joking around too. I don’t think I can say there’s nothing else than laughing there. It’s something special. It was fun. Fun to do at home too.

Deslauriers started the year as a semi-regular scratch, fighting for playing time with Devin Shore as Rowney and Derek Grant locked down regular spots on the Ducks’ fourth line. To go from consistent scratch at the beginning of the season, to natural hat trick at the end, was a reward that paid dividends.

Feats like Deslauriers’ are a reminder to all of us that just because a player at the highest level of their sport isn’t a star, that they are there for a reason; that they’re absolutely capable of putting up a highlight explosion. It may not happen often, but the possibility exists.

This is one of the best things about sports: the greatest performances can come from the most unexpected places.