VANCOUVER — When you watch Sammy Blais in a Rangers jersey, you see a player who loves to throw hits. He runs through guys. That’s the hallmark of a player who embraces being physical, not one who’s trying to be physical because someone told him he needed to do it to get more ice time.
It wasn’t always that way for the 25-year-old winger.
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“He was really soft back then, to be quite honest,” said Bruce Richardson, who coached Blais at Victoriaville of the Quebec League in 2014-15. “We always had to push him. We had to sit him in the stands, put him on the fourth line, take him off the power play. That was hard because he was one of our best players that year. He was so skilled that he didn’t have to work and compete.”
“It’s true, I wasn’t really touching anyone in junior,” Blais said.
That was Blais’ breakout season. He’d been a bit of a slow developer as an amateur, joining the QMJHL from the regional Quebec amateur league midseason in 2013-14. The Blues took a chance and drafted him at No. 176 in 2014, and he rewarded that faith with a big season, posting 82 points in 61 games.
After turning pro in 2016, Blais got another talking-to from a coach about adding a physical element to his game. This coach likely had a more direct impact.
“Craig Berube pulled me aside early that year in Chicago (of the AHL),” Blais said. “I thought I could get away with just being a skill guy, but you find out pretty quick that everyone in the pros has skill. He told me to add something to my game. And I kind of loved it.”
There was another reason Blais may not have felt the need to become a crash-and-bang type: When the Blues drafted him in the sixth round in 2014 — Blais wasn’t even on the list of 200 North American prospects ranked by NHL Central Scouting — Blais stood 5-foot-9. By the time he turned pro, he was 6-2. He’s currently listed at 210 pounds.
“When he got to us, he definitely had the size to be a more physical player,” said Eric Veilleux, who was Blais’ coach in San Antonio in 2017-18. “His will to want to succeed and get better is why he’s having success right now at staying in the NHL.”
Blais was a point-per-game player in San Antonio, earning his first call-ups to St. Louis that season. He never quite caught on with the Blues as an everyday player, with injuries and a couple of similar forwards in Ivan Barbashev, Oskar Sundqvist and Zach Sanford nosing Blais out for ice time in St. Louis’ bottom six. But Blais had some moments with the Blues, most notably in a must-win Game 6 of the team’s second-round series against Dallas during the 2019 Stanley Cup run.
Berube, his first pro coach, put Blais in for the game, and Blais scored the final goal of a 4-1 win. He didn’t leave the lineup again for the rest of St. Louis’ run to the title. Even playing 10 fewer games than his teammates, Blais had 70 hits, fourth-most on the team.
Sammy Blais is the 12th player in @StLouisBlues history to score a goal in his #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/iS3dHAgOdz
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) May 5, 2019
“Sammy just has that attitude, you know? I’ve coached him for a couple of years now and been around the kid, and he’s come a long way as a player,” Berube said after that Game 6 win. “He just … the big moments like this don’t bother him. He can handle the pressure.”
It’s that combination of edge and skill that’s made him a nice fit so far with the Rangers. That was evident from the first days of training camp, when Blais showed off the skill that made him a junior standout — perhaps to the surprise of some who’d never really known him to have that kind of talent.
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“In St. Louis, we were a hard team to play against — first line through fourth line,” he said. “I’m starting to see some of that here. I loved my time in St. Louis and I really had no idea I was going to get traded. But the change of scenery has been good for me. I’m happy with the way I’ve handled myself since I got here, just trying to be a player that’s hard to play against.”
Of all the additions Chris Drury made to give his team more bite, Blais was maybe the most unassuming. Barclay Goodrow was a headline-maker, coming off two Stanley Cups and armed with a big free-agent contract; Ryan Reaves’ resume is well-known too.
But Blais was an eyebrow-raiser mostly for being half the return for the very popular Pavel Buchnevich. When you see a 25-year-old in his sixth pro season who still has more AHL games (143) than NHL (128), it’s fair to wonder if the Rangers were getting someone useful.
Then, you watch him hit. He has to be careful not to cross the line too much — his first couple of games, he looked like he was gunning for the penalty minutes title — but he’s been effective with his physical play and mixed it with skill plays like this one in Nashville.
Fox > Blais > Laf = 2-1 pic.twitter.com/oFL9dHZJda
— Rangers on MSG (@RangersMSGN) October 22, 2021
His connection with Alexis Lafrenière has been strong and seemingly very welcomed by the younger forward. Gerard Gallant has the two skating with Filip Chytil, a Kid Line of sorts with Blais as the wizened veteran of the three (Lafrenière is 20, Chytil 22).
“He’s a really good kid,” Blais said of Lafrenière, whom he skated and trained with one summer in Montreal a few years back. “Maybe I can help him a little bit, guide him, but I don’t have much to say on the ice. He’s a pretty good player already. But it’s a good relationship.”
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Blais is a restricted free agent after the season, and this coming summer will be a messy one for Drury and the salary cap. But Blais’ $1.5 million average annual value is manageable, and his contributions have been solid. With the Rangers struggling to find consistency on the wing so far despite the immense top-six talent, having Blais be a solid bottom-six player has been the sort of stabilizer the team needs.
“I think he can be a top-six player in the league,” Veilleux said. “He’s a confident kid, and he’s a more complete player than he was just a few years ago. He was a one-dimensional player in junior, and he understood what you have to do as a pro. Credit to Sammy, he made the changes he needed to and you see the result.”
(Photo: Alex Brandon / Associated Press)