Of the 210 players selected at the 2014 NHL Draft, only 40 of them have recorded at least 100 points in the NHL.
Recommended Videos
Jake Evans is one of them after being selected in the seventh round (207th overall) by the Canadiens.
Heading into Monday’s game against the Edmonton Oilers at the Bell Centre (7:30 p.m., Prime, RDS), Evans had 3-5-8 totals in 18 games this season. He scored a goal in Saturday’s 5-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets, giving him 30-70-100 totals in 286 career games.
“I kind of looked like Cole (Caufield) a little bit there, didn’t I?” Evans said with a smile when asked about his goal against the Blue Jackets.
Evans has been one of the Canadiens’ best players since the start of training camp and head coach Martin St. Louis has rewarded the 28-year-old centre by promoting him from his regular fourth-line spot to the second line with Caufield and Alex Newhook.
That’s good for Evans, but it’s not necessarily good for the team.
When GM Kent Hughes acquired Newhook and Kirby Dach in trades with the Colorado Avalanche and Chicago Blackhawks, respectively, the thinking was they could provide depth at centre. But St. Louis now has both Newhook and Dach playing as wingers and centre Lucas Condotta was called up from the AHL’s Laval Rocket to play on the fourth line.
To Evans’s credit, he is making the most of this opportunity during his sixth season with the Canadiens and is on pace to score 17 goals, which would surpass his career-high of 13 set in 2021-22. He’s also on pace for 44 points, which would surpass his career high of 29 from 2021-22.
Making the most of opportunities is nothing new for Evans.
He was the last of six players the Canadiens selected at the 2014 NHL Draft after Nikita Scherbak was taken in the first round (26th overall), Brett Lernout in the third round, Nikolas Koberstein and Daniel Audette in the fifth round, and Hayden Hawkey in the sixth round. Apart from Evans, Scherbak (6-2-8 totals in 37 games) and Lernout (0-1-1 totals in 21 games) were the only other two to play in the NHL.
As a 16-year-old, Evans started out as a fourth-liner with the OJHL’s St. Michael’s Buzzers before posting 16-46-63 totals in 49 games during his second full season with the team and heading to the University of Notre Dame. He also started out on the fourth line at Notre Dame before becoming team captain and posting 13-33-46 totals in 40 games during his fourth and final season there. After turning pro, Evans started out on the fourth line with the Rocket.
“I like to think I’m a pretty driven guy and I just want to keep pushing to get more out of myself and to help the team,” Evans said. “Fourth line’s not a bad thing, but every single player here wants to move up the lineup and I’m happy for that opportunity.”
Evans is getting a kick out of looking at the board in the locker room and seeing his name on the second line.
“I just chirp everyone because finally … I’m usually just looking at the bottom of it,” Evans said with another smile. “So it’s nice seeing myself up there. But can’t be happy with it … I just got to keep pushing. We’ve got a lot of depth on this team and a lot of good players on every line so you could say it’s second line, but it’s a lot of good lines that when we’re on our game and everyone’s going it’s hard to play against.
“It’s obviously a nice opportunity,” he added. “I felt like I had a pretty good camp and the confidence has been growing since then and just want to keep it going.”
St. Louis noted that Evans’s offensive touches with the puck have improved this season while he remains responsible defensively and keeps playing a solid 200-foot game. Evans is also a very effective penalty-killer, taking great pride in that part of his game, and is strong on faceoffs.
This is the final season of Evans’s three-year contract with a US$1.7 million salary-cap hit and he can become an unrestricted free agent next summer. It will be interesting to see if Hughes tries to re-sign Evans or looks to move him before the NHL trade deadline on March 7. At this point it looks like keeping Evans would be a smart move, especially since fellow centre Christian Dvorak can also become an unrestricted free agent next summer and Hughes will definitely be looking to trade him.
Evans is trying not to focus on his contract situation while playing the best hockey of his NHL career.
“Growing up your dream is to play one game in the NHL and then you keep striving for more,” he said when asked about reaching the 100-point mark for his career. “To reach that milestone is another cool mark and it’s on to the next milestone now. So you just got to keep pushing.”