LEWISTON – Alexandre Picard looked up at the top of the crease Wednesday morning. Visibly annoyed, the Lewiston Maineiacs’ star forward gathered himself and slowly skated across the ice, shaking off his sudden fall.
Almost apologetically, 16-year-old rookie defenseman Sebastien Piche skated after Picard, asking if he was all right.
Picard turned, stared, mumbled something in French and continued to skate away. Piche turned around and sighed, taking his place back in line with the rest of the team’s defensemen.
At 16, Piche is already starting to warrant a second look from his teammates, especially since a spat of injuries forced the newly acquired blueliner into immediate service.
“We wanted him to come in, to be our seventh defenseman, to get some ice time and see what happened,” said Maineiacs coach Clem Jodoin, “but that hasn’t been the case. He went right in.”
Piche, a native of Rouyn-Noranda, and 17-year-old rookie Jonathan Cameron, a drafted player from Newfoundland, have been pressed into service on the blue line after Chad Denny, Bobby Gates and Michal Korenko all went down with various ailments over the weekend.
“We didn’t have the choice to put them in,” said Jodoin. “Cameron, we knew him a little bit from training camp, and we knew he could hold his own on the ice. He’s a big kid and he can use that to an advantage. Piche, I had no clue. I didn’t know him at all, how he looked on the ice. I didn’t know anything about him.”
The two players were equally as surprised to contribute immediately.
“I wasn’t expecting all of this time,” said Cameron. “I wasn’t expecting all of these injuries to come up, but it’s not bad getting this much ice time. It’s good to get some ice time with the team.”
“I was surprised a bit,” said Piche. “I was playing 5-on-3 last weekend against Drummondville, but they needed me to play. I know that will change when everyone gets healthy again, but I just want to play. I have to know my place out there and wait my turn. It’s good for me.”
The two have been more than stopgaps for the Maineiacs. Piche nearly potted his first goal in his first game last Saturday, and would have if not for an acrobatic save by the Val d’Or netminder. Cameron has played the body well. Both have moved the puck and have not been liabilities.
“So far, (Piche) has been a surprise for us,” said Jodoin. “The way he moves the puck, the way he sees the ice, the way he anticipates everything. In desperate times, with injuries over injuries, you could say the same thing for (backup goaltenders) Travis Fullerton and Marc-Andre Perron. Their contribution for this team has been outstanding.
“As for Cameron, we were questioning his character. At training camp he didn’t show any emotion, he didn’t show anything like that, but he’s the type of player that plays well with the team, doesn’t make any mistakes and moves the puck well. I was expecting more from him at training camp. The decision to bring him back, I said Hey, let’s work with him to see what he can do, what he can improve and where he can go with that talent he has.'”
And with the promise each has shown so far, Jodoin is already looking to the future.
“That gives us a good nucleus of defense when you think about it,” said Jodoin. “You have Korenko, Denny and Cameron at 17 and (Piche) at 16, that gives us a core of defensemen. We will lose some (next year) but that gives us some coming up, too. It gives stability to the organization. If you don’t have defensemen, it’s a very long season.”
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