The Canadiens enjoyed their first day off from training camp Wednesday, and Michael Pezzetta spent part of it catching up on the first four episodes of the new Crave docuseries The Rebuild: Inside the Montreal Canadiens.
Pezzetta got a pleasant surprise when Episode 3 showed some old video clips from his youth hockey days in Toronto, including a beautiful breakaway goal.
“I didn’t know,” he said Thursday when asked about the video clips being in the docuseries. “I guess my parents had given them some tapes and stuff, so that was cool.”
Like just about every player in the NHL — including fourth-liners like him — Pezzetta was an offensive star in youth hockey. He was a Maple Leafs fan and wore No. 13 in honour of his favourite player, former Toronto captain Mats Sundin.
“In minor atom, it was probably ridiculous, to be honest,” Pezzetta said when asked what his offensive stats were back then. “We won the championship that year and it was a ton of fun.”
Pezzetta continued to be an offensive star as he climbed the Greater Toronto Hockey League ranks, and he was selected in the first round (11th overall) of the 2014 junior OHL draft by the Sudbury Wolves.
The Canadiens selected Pezzetta in the sixth round (160th overall) of the 2016 NHL Draft, and he realized he would need to find a different role if he was going to earn a job with the team. Pezzetta is now preparing for his fourth season as a rugged fourth-liner with the Canadiens and he scored two goals (including an empty-netter) in a 3-0 pre-season win over the New Jersey Devils Tuesday night at the Bell Centre. He is the only player the Canadiens selected at the 2016 NHL Draft who is still with the team.
Pezzetta will be back in the lineup Thursday when the Canadiens play another pre-season game, in Toronto against the Maple Leafs (7 p.m., SN, RDS).
“For me, it’s come to camp and I always feel like I need to prove myself again,” Pezzetta said after Thursday’s morning skate in Brossard before the Canadiens flew to Toronto. “It’s good. It keeps you on your toes, it keeps you working, it keeps you waking up every day with a purpose. It’s tough sometimes, but I embrace that job and I always love proving myself.”
Pezzetta’s work ethic was partly inherited from his father.
“He’s a firefighter — almost 30 years fire captain,” Pezzetta says about his father in the Crave series. “He’s won a couple of awards actually for saving people’s lives and he hasn’t even gone to accept the award because he’s like, ‘I’m just doing my job.’”
Pezzetta understands what his job is.
“For right now, my chair is just I want to be the best fourth-line left-winger in the league,” he said.
Since taking over as head coach two years ago, Martin St. Louis has told Pezzetta he wants him to be more than a fourth-liner who just dumps the puck in and chases it. St. Louis doesn’t want Pezzetta to be afraid to carry the puck and try to make plays when there’s an opportunity.
“I feel like I try to help Pezz just not playing his game … trying to help him play the game,” St. Louis said. “I feel like he’s improved in that department. He’ll never be a top offensive guy in this league, but he can help with the continuity of a play. He can help extend O-zone (time). Of course, when we dump a puck in and Pezz is coming on a forecheck, that’s his game. And every now and then during the game, that happens. But if you’re just looking for that, you’re not playing the game. He’s learned to control his energy a little bit and his workload on the ice is more calculated, and it shows.”
Pezzetta led the Canadiens last season with 242 hits despite sitting out 21 games. Josh Anderson ranked second with 169 hits.
This is a very big season for the 26-year-old Pezzetta, who is in the final year of his contract with a US$812,500 salary-cap hit.
“It’s so early in the season, I can’t say I’m thinking about it right now,” he said. “But obviously, from a personal standpoint it’s a big year. I have to play hard and do well and I could set up my future. I think for me right now it’s just doing the little things and winning every single day, and then that stuff will just figure itself out.”
Pezzetta has a new look this season after cutting his long hair for the CanDonate Hair Foundation, a Montreal-based organization that makes free wigs for children who have lost their hair due to cancer treatments.
“I’ve never had sweat come down my face,” Pezzetta said with a smile. “Usually my mop just soaks it up. I was saying on the bench it’s so weird playing with short hair. You’re always getting sweat in your face.”
That comes from hard work, something Pezzetta now specializes in.