Just about everything surrounding the Calgary Flames has been disappointing through the first two months of the NHL season, including their marquee offseason acquisition: former Boston Bruins defenseman Dougie Hamilton.
Hamilton had been viewed as Boston’s blueliner of the future, the successor to Zdeno Chara, before a stunning trade of the eve of the 2015 NHL Draft brought his Bruins tenure to an abrupt end. Now, he’s playing his hockey on the other side of the continent, and so far, he hasn’t been doing so particularly well.
Hamilton enters Friday night’s matchup with the Bruins at Scotiabank Saddledome — his first against the team that drafted him — with just three goals and three assists in 25 games with the Flames. Eleven Calgary players have tallied more points this season, including three defenseman, and Hamilton has done little to elevate his team’s putrid power play, which ranked 29th in the league as of Thursday night.
The 22-year-old is on pace for his lowest scoring output since his rookie season, and his advanced metrics (49.42 Corsi For percentage at even strength, down from 55 percent last season) don’t paint a much prettier picture.
Clearly, this was not the kind of performance the Flames were banking on when they traded three draft picks (including a first-rounder) for Hamilton, then subsequently signed him to a six-year, $34.5 million contract. But head coach Bob Hartley is preaching patience, saying that when critiquing Hamilton’s numbers, observers should also consider the one on his birth certificate.
“We go back to the trade,” Hartley said earlier this week, via the Cargary Herald. “And that was the blockbuster trade of the draft and then he joined a new team. But, at the end, he’s only 22 years old. That’s what we forget because of how big that trade was. Suddenly he’s supposed to carry this team and build a new arena. We have to be patient with him and let him grow in this organization.”
Flames center Joe Colborne, who, like Hamilton, entered the NHL as a Bruins first-round draft pick, echoed his coach, pointing out that presence of Chara and other veteran defensemen like Dennis Seidenberg and Johnny Boychuk served as a security blanket as Hamilton acclimated to the professional game.
“When he was (in Boston), he was — well, it’s kind of hard not to be — in (Chara’s) shadow,” Colbourne said, via the Calgary Herald, “and there were like five or six guys solidified as NHL stars. He’s now having the opportunity to step out from under that and build his own identity.”
The next step in that process for Hamilton is a meeting with his former team, as Calgary is the second stop on the Bruins’ three-game road trip through western Canada. How will that reunion play out? Your guess is as good as his.
“I don’t really know what to expect,” Hamilton said, via the Calgary Herald. “It’ll just be fun. There were a lot of guys I played with a lot of years and looked up to and had friendships with. It’s going to be fun to be on the other side of them. I’ve never experienced something like this before.”
Thumbnail photo via Sergei Belski/USA TODAY Sports Images
