Mark Howe was impressed with what he was seeing.
The Hockey Hall of Fame defenseman was with his son Nolan, the head coach and director of hockey operations of the Maine Nordiques, watching that team’s tryouts before this season, the inaugural one for the North American Hockey League expansion franchise, when he made a comment.
“Nine times out of 10 that kid touches the puck, he makes the play I would make,” Howe said.
Mark was talking about 20-year-old blueliner Cole Ouellette, a Lewiston, Maine, native who, of course, made the team.
“That’s the best compliment I can give him,” Nolan said. “I remember my dad saying that and thinking, ‘That’s enough for me to hear.’ ”
Truth be told, Nolan had those feelings from the moment he first saw Ouellette play, in March of last season for the NA3HL Lewiston/Auburn Nordiques. He was enamored with his vision and ability to create plays.
“His thought process for the game is elite,” Nolan said. “He makes a good first pass. His offensive instincts are up there. He’s shown a tremendous job of being able to transition from the NA3HL to the NAHL. I look at him as your prototypical modern-day defenseman as far as his skating ability, his puck-moving skills and his hockey IQ.”
There’s no questioning Ouellette’s impact offensively.
In 2017-18, his first season with the L/A Nordiques, Ouellette totaled 59 points (18-41-59) in 45 games. He followed that with an even better 2018-19 campaign by recording 87 points (16-71-87) in 44 contests. He had a plus/minus of plus-67 in the former season and plus-99 in the latter.
In 32 games this season with Maine, the 5-foot-9, 170-pounder was pacing Nordiques defensemen and was sixth overall on his team in scoring with 22 points (3-18-22).
There’s also no doubting Ouellette’s reputation as a winner. This is a player who helped lead the Maine Moose to championships at nationals with the 16-U squad in 2015-16 and 18-U club in 2016-17.
Instead, the test for Ouellette has been mastering the defensive aspect of his position in a more challenging circuit, where he is minus-10.
“Cole is a competitive player,” said Maine Nordiques associate head coach Cameron Robichaud, who also coached Ouellette the past two seasons in the NA3HL. “Offensively, he’s a threat at whatever level he’s played, and he’s a winner. Defensively, it’s been an adjustment at this level. The game is faster, heavier, and he’s playing with and against some higher-level players. But he competes, and at one point he told me he wasn’t happy with his plus/minus. ... It was something he was focused on changing, and he did. Within four games, he was a plus-1. He’s working on being the best he can be defensively; using his body, his anticipation skills and his stick skills are things he’s constantly focusing on.”
The Nordiques have allowed 149 goals, the most of any team in the league. And while it’s not the fault of any individual player, Ouellette, as one of the club’s top blueliners, is taking it personally.
“When a stat like that is out there, it hits you right in the heart,” he said. “It pushes you to not only be better in the division, but No. 1 in it. You want to be No. 1. So, for the tail end of this season, I want to stop goals and allow the least amount of them.”
The fact that Ouellette is playing in the NAHL is a testament to his drive and determination. He tried out in each of the past two years, first with the Northeast Generals and then with the Johnstown Tomahawks, but both times failed to make the final cut and ended up in the NA3HL.
A significant benefit of playing with the L/A Nordiques, though, was being able to develop under Robichaud, whom Ouellette credits for making him feel like he had a chance to not only make it to the NAHL, but also play beyond it in the future at the college hockey level.
“He unlocked my brain in the sense of showing me how to push myself off the ice as well as on the ice, and that hockey is moving in a different direction,” Ouellette said. “Stay-at-home, big defensive defensemen isn’t a thing in hockey anymore, which made me feel good because I’m a smaller guy.”
Ouellette, never shy of giving others kudos, praises his often younger defensive partners for helping him overcome his lack of size in the NAHL, which is more physical and features a faster pace than his previous hockey stops.
“Even though I’m 20 years old, the younger guys make me better every day at practice,” he said. “They come from all over — Canadian junior, American junior, prep — and the way everybody plays is different. We are a bunch of misfits on one team, but we take everybody’s single skills and put them together.”
Ouellette also expresses gratitude for Maine Nordiques assistant coach Matthew Pinchevsky, whom he said has “believed in me the whole time where at times other people haven’t believed in me.”
The left-handed shooter continued, “He knew I had the ability to play in the NAHL but that I had to adjust to the quicker pace and work out more off the ice.”
Ouellette admitted that one of the key differences at this level, where the schedule is chock full of back-to-backs and includes three games in three days at times, is how much he must prepare off the ice.
Said Ouellette: “You really have to make sure you’re eating and drinking well so you’re ready to go for the second and third game in a three-game series. It comes down to who’s going to be more conditioned in that last game of the series to do the sweep.”
To help their players achieve their off-ice goals, the Nordiques work with a training program run by Total Performance Athletics Sports, which has done wonders for Ouellette.
“We do a lift every day after practice,” Ouellette said, “and before or after a game we do certain stretches, which helps us the next day because I definitely feel better the next day and more prepared for our next game.”
As for his future, Ouellette has his sights set on securing a spot on a Division 1 college hockey club. He’s also getting ready to start taking classes again.
For the remainder of this season in Maine, though, Ouellette is going to strive to keep pucks out of his team’s net. And, perhaps at some point, he’ll meet the man who gave him the greatest compliment he’s ever received.
Concluded Ouellette: “Nolan told me what Mark said after our main camp. It was really humbling that someone like his father would say that. I didn’t get to meet him in person, unfortunately, but the fact he said something about me was special because of his background as a player in the National Hockey League.”
@LeoScaglioneJr
