MONTREAL — The Canadiens had a difficult night Tuesday against a team that plays the way they aspire to play, on top of their opponents, forcing turnovers, spending large swaths of time in the offensive zone.
The New Jersey Devils did that to the Canadiens pretty consistently from the first intermission onward, but there was one bright spot for the home team from a possession standpoint, and it has been a consistent bright spot all season.
The defense pairing of Jordan Harris and Johnathan Kovacevic was the only Canadiens pairing to finish the night with a positive shot attempt differential at five-on-five, just as it has consistently all season. While Harris has been getting the bulk of the praise on that pairing, Kovacevic was playing a landmark game in his hockey career.
On Monday, Canadiens executive vice president of hockey operations Jeff Gorton told Kovacevic to get a place to live in Montreal. It was something Kovacevic had never heard before from an NHL executive. At age 25, after 137 games in the AHL over three years, after being drafted by the Winnipeg Jets in his third year of eligibility, after being cut twice in the OHL before playing Junior ‘A’ and attending unheralded Merrimack College, and finally after being a waiver claim in the first year he was waiver eligible, Kovacevic got the news he had waited so long and worked so hard to hear.
Kovacevic has been living in a downtown hotel with his girlfriend since the Canadiens claimed him on waivers from the Jets on Oct. 8. All he has done since is provide the Canadiens with exactly what they needed, a steady presence on the right side of their defense playing relatively mistake-free hockey and allowing them to have Justin Barron polish his game in the AHL instead of forcing him. into an NHL role he did not appear ready for in training camp.
Pas notre soirée.
Not our night.#GoHabsGo pic.twitter.com/UeQg7GXSKO
— Canadiens Montréal (@CanadiensMTL) November 16, 2022
That was rewarded Monday when Gorton delivered that news. When Kovacevic was asked Tuesday morning prior to the game against the Devils how he felt receiving that news, a huge smile came across his face, and he nodded.
“Really good,” he said.
It was not difficult to ascertain just by looking at that smile how good it felt.
“It just gives you a sense of being grounded a little bit, just having your own space, having your own kitchen, being able to do your own laundry. So just a sense of groundedness, but also a sense that they see me being here for a little bit, which is the biggest thing,” Kovacevic said. “Just because they told me to look for a place, I’m not going to get complacent, because it does change very fast in pro hockey. But at least it gives me a little bit of an idea that they like what they see from me, they want me for a bit of a longer haul. Because when you’re picked up on waivers, you never really know. It’s been just over a month now and them saying that makes me feel like they see me being here for a while.
“That’s a cool feeling.”
It is that much cooler for someone who was cut twice in minor midget, including in his OHL draft year.
The younger rookies on the Canadiens defense have been monopolizing a lot of attention, and deservedly so. Harris has been outstanding, Arber Xhekaj has not looked the least bit out of place and has an origin story even more unlikely than Kovacevic’s, and Kaiden Guhle has been arguably the Canadiens’ best defenseman this season (an argument I would be more than willing to make). The fact Kovacevic is 25, the fact he was a waiver claim, has overshadowed the fact he is also a rookie on this Canadiens defense, he is also going through new experiences and is also making adjustments on the fly.
He is doing everything his fellow rookies are doing, and he’s doing it with another rookie as his defense partner.
But to Harris, Kovacevic is providing him with the stability he could expect to get from a seasoned veteran.
“It’s just his intelligence,” Harris said. “Sometimes you just click with guys and I feel like he’s really easy to read off of. He always seems to make the right play out there. It’s been a lot of fun and it makes it easy to play with him.
“You just don’t have to second-guess anything; you look around and he’s right there. He’s great at supporting you, so when you look back, you want to go D-to-D and he’s right there, in a good spot for support. So that really helps. It just clicks. It’s hard to explain.”
The day after Kovacevic went on waivers, he was sitting alone in his Winnipeg apartment, wondering what his future would hold, hoping an NHL team out there would show an interest and give him the opportunity he felt he had earned in the AHL. The Canadiens gave him that opportunity, but it was up to him to seize it.
On the ice, he’s been steady and impressed coach Martin St. Louis, who keeps mentioning how he knew nothing about Kovacevic until he arrived in his dressing room. All he’s done is meet every expectation placed upon him and then some.
“We’ll talk about our concepts in (the dressing room), and I feel like he executes them really well,” Harris said. “All our players do, but you have faith that he’ll be in the right spot based on what we talked about here, but also just instinctual. If something happens quickly, Kovy will be right there in the right spot.”
Off the ice, the transition has been just as smooth.
“I think he was unknown to a lot of us, probably everyone, but he’s come in here and first off he’s a great guy, so he’s jelled in this locker room,” goaltender Jake Allen said. “And then his game has evolved, he’s gotten better. Coming into an organization, the biggest thing is comfort. You’re new to the city, new surroundings, new people, jumping right into the NHL right away for a guy that didn’t have a lot of experience, so I think you’ve got to give him a lot of credit for the the way he’s handled himself and the way he’s played.”
What jumps out immediately about Kovacevic is how humble he is, how grateful he is to be in the NHL, something he doubted was possible when he was getting cut from elite-level teams year after year.
“He’s really down to earth,” Harris said. “You can tell there’s no arrogance about him. In Winnipeg, he signed an extension and was talking about how he thought he would be there a long time, he just had to wait a little bit to stick in the NHL. But coming here, and he’s touched on this, he’s so grateful for the opportunity he’s gotten here. For all of us, it’s an incredible honor to play for the Habs, but for him, it means a lot.”
To get a sense of how down-to-earth Kovacevic is, he didn’t even think the fact the Canadiens told him to find a place to live was newsworthy. He was genuinely surprised when I told him I would write about it. He hadn’t even told his parents yet because they are in Australia, so I told him they would be reading about it instead.
“Really? I didn’t know it was news like that,” he said, laughing. “I just thought it was news to me. I didn’t know it was news to people.”
Kovacevic is still getting to know Montreal. He’s been trying to be a tourist on off days, visiting Notre-Dame Basilica and walking around Old Montreal on his last one. Before that, it was a visit to Mount Royal a few weeks ago just as the fall colors were in full bloom.
“The foliage was beautiful,” he said. “It was perfect.”
That could also be a way to describe the fit between the Canadiens and Kovacevic. There’s nothing saying how long this will last, but there’s no need for Kovacevic or the Canadiens to worry about that now. He is firmly a part of this team, a player the Canadiens would not risk putting back on waivers to send him to the AHL because he is too valuable to them.
So valuable, in fact, that it was time the Canadiens gave him the green light to have a kitchen.
(Photo of Johnathan Kovacevic on opening night: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
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