TORONTO - His junior team, the Western Hockey League's Kelowna Rockets, was in a ton of shootouts last season. But Luke Schenn never got his chance to take a shot. His coach in Kelowna knew what his strengths were, and knew what was going to get him drafted by an NHL team. And Schenn did too. He refers to himself as a "defensive defenceman."
But Monday night, he was Bobby Orr. Monday night, he was Paul Coffey. Monday night, Ron Wilson, Schenn's coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, looked down his bench in the shootout, and of all the players he could have picked, he chose the rookie.
"We had a little (shootout) practice the other day, and he was a finalist," Wilson said. "I think he scored twice . . . He had great moves in practice."
And Schenn made a great move on St. Louis Blues' goaltender Manny Legace in a real-life shootout at Air Canada Centre, pulling the puck to his backhand and flipping it over Legace's pad to cap a 4-3 Toronto win. The victory improved the Leafs' record to 2-2-1 in pre-season, and it boosted Schenn's already blossoming confidence.
"I just kind of went in there," Schenn said of his shootout goal. "I don't know if I had a move in mind."
The stay-at-home defenceman has played in all five pre-season games. He was paired with playmaker Tomas Kaberle Monday night. Schenn showed some of his strength and his nasty streak, when he shoved Blues veteran power forward Keith Tkachuk to the ice in the dying moments of the second period.
"He hasn't looked out of place to me," said Wilson.
The Leafs coach spoke earlier in the day about how he wanted to challenge Schenn, and to play him against top players, like a Tkachuk, and like Blues' speedster Paul Kariya.
"Those are the things you want to see if he is ready and capable of handling," Wilson said. "That is what the whole process is. Seeing how he interacts with his teammates, how he corrects his mistakes. "Up to this point he has passed every test.
"(Leafs assistant coach) Rob Zettler is working with him at moving pucks quickly, identifying and simplifying how he moves the pucks, because if he cleans up that part of his game, there is a real good chance he could be here."
Wilson did not mention anything about using Schenn in the shootout. And maybe he didn't need to. Maybe Wilson already knew that the fifth overall pick in the 2008 draft was ready for his next test.
"He almost over-skated the puck," Wilson said. "It would have destroyed his confidence if that happened."
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