Canadian junior team captain getting hot again with OHL playoffs looming
Brian McNair
bmcnair@durhamregion.com
OSHAWA -- Any thoughts that Scott Laughton was drawing off the energy of Canada’s Olympic gold medal win earlier in the day were quickly shot down by the Oshawa Generals star on Sunday night.
He was feeding off something, to be sure, but it was a good night’s rest that was more important to Laughton, who turned in a stellar three-goal, four-point effort in a 7-2 romp over the Kingston Frontenacs at the General Motors Centre.
“I’m not much of a guy that wakes up early,” said Laughton, who caught only the tail end of Canada’s efficient 3-0 win over Sweden Sunday morning. “I wanted to get good rest for this game tonight and it paid off.”
Indeed it did.
Laughton, who was captain of Canada’s world junior team this year, scored his third hat trick of the season and fifth of his OHL career on the strength of three pin-point shots.
He opened the scoring on the power play midway through the first period, ripping home a rebound high to Matt Mahalak’s stick side, then scored the final two on booming slap shots, one to the glove side through a crowd and the other off the cross bar after he intercepted a Kingston clearing attempt.
“The legs were a little bit tight at the beginning so I didn’t know what to expect, but when you get a goal early there, I think you feed off of it, and every time I’ve scored in the first period this year, I’ve felt really good,” explained Laughton. “It was a really good team win.”
It was the third win of the weekend for the Generals, and second over Kingston, all but wrapping up first place in the East Division and Eastern Conference. Oshawa (39-16-0-5) has moved 15 points ahead of Kingston (32-22-2-2) in the division and 14 up on Sudbury (30-20-3-6) in the conference.
“Our goal has obviously changed since the start of the year,” said coach D.J. Smith, who expected to be fighting for a playoff spot. “But we know the playoffs are what count. We’ve got to try to lock this up, the Eastern Conference, and then that we keep rolling right in through the playoffs.”
Smith has all hands on deck right now, with three lines playing well, six solid defencemen and two hot goalies. But he knows it’s Laughton who stirs the drink, even in the shut-down role he’s been given.
“Since he’s taken on the role of the shut-down guy, he also forces the other team’s top players to play defence,” Smith said. “It’s a lot easier to play defence when you’re in the offensive zone. He’s committing to defence and the offence is coming to him.
“When he plays like that there’s likely not a better player in the league.”
Laughton admitted he experienced somewhat of a letdown after he returned from Sweden and the world junior championships, where Canada finished a disappointing fourth. He’s back up to full speed now, though, and has moved into the top-10 in league scoring with 37 goals and 80 points in just 48 games.
On Monday he was named the OHL player of the week on the strength of four goals and seven points in four games.
“After world juniors I kind of caught myself cheating and not playing as well on defence,” he explained. “As soon as I was put in the role to play other teams top lines, I started taking pride in it and it was good for me. When other top lines try to cheat for offence, that’s when you go.
“Everything’s coming together and we’ve got to keep moving forward,” he added of the team in general. “We can’t look back on this weekend and glide into next weekend. We’ve got to come out with a bang and play like we lost one.
“We want to finish strong going into playoffs.”
02/26/2014