[MissTeeks]

http://flames.nhl.com/club/news.htm?...id=DL|CGY|home

Secretly, Lanny McDonald pulls for the extra five minutes. Al MacInnis marvels at the hockey IQ, Jarome Iginla the ability, at such a tender age, to handle the adulation of a hothouse Canadian market.
Joe Nieuwendyk, he of the Charmin-double-ply-soft hands, uses the oft-repeated Patrick Kane comparison. Coach Terry Crisp likens the escapability antennae to a pipecleaner-thin maestro of another era, the Great One, Wayne Gretzky.
“I tell people: If Johnny Gaudreau got caught in a phone booth with a 6-foot-4, 220-pound defenceman,’’ laughs McDonald, who knows a thing or two about being popular in this town, “I’m sure the defenceman would still be in there, searching for Johnny, long after Gaudreau had deked him four times and was already out the door and gone.
“This kid is SO much fun to watch. You always hear that term ‘Worth the price of admission.’
“Well, he is.’’

“The thing that sticks out the most, for me, is his hockey sense,’’ lauds MacInnis, indisputably the optimum defenceman in franchise history and these days VP of Hockey Operations for the St. Louis Blues. “When you play against guys like that, guys with elite hockey IQ, they find ways to create enough space and enough time to make the good plays.
“Not always the fastest guys. Not always the biggest guys. But they’re tough on defencemen, believe me. Because you’re always leery of what’s going on all around you.
“Honestly, a good comparison -- when you think of size, of not being the fastest skater -- is Dougie Gilmour. A different mentality, sure, but you measure up everything else and it’s a good comparison. For me, anyway.
“(Gaudreau) has the same ability Killer had to make subtle movements with his body, whether it’s dropping his shoulder or skating by the puck to hold it back towards his foot in order to create space and complete the pass.”

Gilmour, 1989’s Cup-winning table tipper, is reluctant to delve into stylistic comparisons. Suffice to say, he likes what he sees.
“What he does,’’ says Sam Bennett’s old boss with the OHL Kingston Frontenacs, “you can’t teach. It’s natural. I guess I wasn’t much bigger” -- officially listed at 5-foot-10 to Gaudreau’s 5-9 -- “but for guys like us, that’s how you have to play. Change speeds. Buy time. Stay out of harm’s way.
“It’s hard to explain … A lot of it is instinctive.
“What impresses me most? How he reads traffic and gets to the holes. And he’s developed some great chemistry with (Sean) Monahan.
“The year Calgary has had is obviously frustrating for everybody there but there’ve been some bright spots. And he’s certainly one of them.”

Crisp, during his three seasons in charge of the Flames, witnessed that maddening now-you-see-him/now-you-don’t phenomenon often enough with Gretzky.
“Try chasing 99 around, the way we used to whenever we’d play the Oilers,’’ he groans. “How often did he get hit? I’ll tell you: Not often. And believe me, people were trying. Gretzky was like a vapour.
“You just couldn’t win. You went out of your way to hit him, he’d burn you. You stayed back, he’d burn you.
“So darned if you do and darned if you don’t, right?
“Johnny Gaudreau’s the same way.”

Jarome Iginla fully understands that love, its inherent expectations, having spent the final decade of his nearly 16-year stay here as the unofficial symbol of the franchise.
“There’s a lot of pressure playing in a Canadian city, where the microscope is always on you,’’ said Iginla on a recent pitstop into Calgary, “but he seems to be thriving on that.
“As a player, well, he’s just so much fun to watch.
“The anticipation. The plays he makes, at top speed. He just finds a way to produce, wherever he’s been.
“He can score goals, obviously, but he’d be a fun guy to have on your line because he loves to dish it. You can tell, watching him, that he’s just as happy finding the open guy as putting the puck in himself.
“You put him in any offensive situation and he’s going to shine.”

“I'm not quite sure where his ceiling is in comparison with, say, a Connor McDavid, a bigger guy,’’ hedges Nieuwendyk, the former Flames’ captain and a Calder Trophy recipient back in the day.
“But he’s obviously a special player, an unbelievable player. Can he dominate? He’s already dominating in some ways. He’s got a little bit of (Patrick) Kane in him. A little quicker than Kane.
“If he has the right team, the right players, around him, he could probably do what Kane is doing in any given season, I’d suspect.
“He’s kind of the face of Flames right now, probably the single biggest people pay money to see the games. They went through a couple of tough years there, but now they’ve got some pizzazz back. They’re a fun team to watch.
“Because of Johnny.”