In today’s NHL, with offense at a three-decade high and more east-west play than ever, being small no longer kills your chances at success. Right winger Justin Poirier, all 5-foot-8 and 181 pounds of him, is a prospect born into the ideal generation.
On Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas, the Carolina Hurricanes selected select Poirier in the fifth round, No. 156 overall. He is the younger brother of Jeremie Poirier, a defenseman selected by the Calgary Flames in Round 3 of the 2020 Draft.
Poirier was the QMJHL’s No. 1 goal scorer past season, burying 51 goals in 68 games with the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. He outscored the league’s No. 2 sniper by six goals and became the first 17-year-old QMJHLer to score 50 goals since Sidney Crosby. Poirier’s playoff performance was utterly jaw-dropping; he ripped home 18 goals in 17 games, helping the Drakkar reach the Final. No QMJHL player has matched that playoff goal total in the past five years, and he averaged the most playoff goals per game of any player with 15 or more games played in the past 15 years.
Aside from size, Poirier, who turns 18 in September, has pretty much every other tool you want from a goal scorer. He has the hockey sense to find soft spots in defensive coverage. He can catch passes off the rush and uncork a quick release. For a small player, he’s also extremely aggressive as a forechecker. He possesses a lethal one-timer that should make him a power-play weapon, too.
His skating does not earn top marks, however, and his compete level has been known to wane at times. Poirier has the profile of a player who needs to be in a team’s top six to make sense as an NHLer, and that means he may require multiple years of farm development before he’s ready.
