Game On Magazine 2017 February 2017 | Page 125

SCOTT TAYLOR’ S NOTEBOOK

Bowman Talks St. Malo’ s Travis Hamonic

By Scotty Bowman
Photo by Jeff Miller
TAMPA, Fla.-- Travis Hamonic, from St. Malo, Man., is one of those defensemen who is now among the game’ s elite. He’ s a player who brings consistency to the rink every night. He is a good solid player who defends well and is strong physically. He can skate and that’ s now one of the most important attributes for a defenseman in the NHL. The way the game is played now defenseman have to have so many more skills than they used to, because they now mean so much to the attack. The end zone is bigger and they defend it a lot differently than they did, say, 10 years ago. If you get that defensemen coming in late, he seems to get the scoring chances that many of the forwards aren’ t getting. The problem is, when you get a good defenseman you might overplay him and he’ s not as fresh as he should be. We see these top defensemen around the league like Hamonic and another Manitoban, Michael Stone, getting 27-28-30 minutes of ice time a night and that might be too much. These days, you need your best defensemen to be fresh so they can follow up the play and still be in position to get back if there is a turnover. It’ s been tough for Hamonic this season because of injury and because the Islanders don’ t play the same way as they did last year. They used to be an attacking team and this year they seem to play far too long in their own end. They lost two pretty good forwards this year in Okposo and Nielsen and if you lose two of your Top 6, that’ s a lot. That’ s why a player such as Hamonic, a guy who is big( 6-foot-2, 210 pounds), experienced and smart, yet only 26-years-old, is so important to the Islanders. He’ s really good around the net, really smart and he’ s a guy that would be ideal for any team in the NHL because of two things: Consistency and the fact that’ s he’ s so physically strong. When you get that combination, you have the kind of NHL defenseman who can play anywhere, with anybody. He’ s an elite player.
William Scott( Scotty) Bowman, OC, was born on Sept. 18, 1933 and holds the record for most regular season wins by a head coach in the NHL with 1,244 and most playoff wins by a head coach with 223. He has 14 Stanley Cup victories, second all-time by any player, coach or executive( Jean Beliveau has 17) in history. He is currently the Senior Advisor of Hockey Operations for the Chicago Blackhawks and still regularly scouts the Tampa Bay Lightning games for the Hawks. He is a member of the Game On Magazine editorial board.
2016- 17 ROSTER DEADLINE EDITION GAME ON 125