Throughout the season, BlueJackets.com will be telling stories about the defenseman position, one of the hardest in the NHL to learn.
When Damon Severson was growing up in Saskatchewan, he loved having the puck on his stick. He would find himself growing impatient with the defensemen on his youth team, who were not as skilled as the future NHLer.
His solution? Become a defenseman himself.
“I just figured when the puck goes back in our zone, I am just gonna go get it myself and skate through everybody and score,” Severson said.
Each Blue Jackets defenseman has a different story of what made them pick the position that got them to the highest level. While it's easy to think most youngsters would gravitate to the forward position – after all, who wouldn’t want to score goals – there's a reason each CBJ blueliner ended up where they did.
It’s common for NHL defensemen to grow up playing forward, like Severson, then switch at some point in their youth career. However, this was not the case for Zach Werenski. He was told to play D from the age of 3, and it stuck with him the rest of the way.
“It's mostly just my brother's team needing a defenseman, and my dad just put me on the team,” Werenski said. “Really no rhyme or reason behind it. It just kind of stuck.”
Now, in the middle of a potential Norris Trophy campaign, the two-time All-Star and Team USA member has been able to shine on both ends of the ice. Werenski has always had an offensive mind and is able to unlock that even more through head coach Dean Evason’s aggressive style.
“I've always enjoyed the offensive part of the game, so even when I was a defenseman, I tried bringing that to the team or my game as much as I could,” Werenski said. “I think the way he coaches and what he wants us to play fits my style really well. It's aggressive all over the ice, and I like playing that way.”
Because Werenski grew up in Michigan, his favorite player growing up was star Red Wings forward Pavel Datsyuk. Although in season he stayed as a defenseman, he would switch to play forward in the summer so he could emulate his favorite player.
One player who started out as a forward and turned into a defenseman is Jake Christiansen. He was late to the position, switching over at the age 12 because his team ran out of defenseman when one of his teammates was sick.
He said that at that age, he did not think about the difference in the positions too much during the game.
“I was just going out and playing hockey,” Christiansen said. “I wasn't thinking too much about, like, what I was even trying to do out there. I was just trying to have fun.”
When he was looking to model his game after an NHLer as a kid, he first looked at the Sedin twins from the Canucks as he was growing up in Vancouver. However, once he made the move to the blue line, he took aspects of Drew Doughty and Erik Karlsson’s games to develop into the player he is today.
“Those guys were obviously really good players in the league and so I watched a lot of them,” Christiansen said. “Obviously, really fun players to watch too."
Christiansen’s fellow Vancouver-area native, Dante Fabbro, had a similar story as Severson. Unlike Severson, though, he was told by a coach to make the position change.
“When I was really young, I started out as a forward and I had tendencies to hang out in the back.” Fabbro said. “Eventually they ended up switching me to D at a young age.”
The problem for Fabbro is he never lost that forward side to him. His coach would find him up in the play more often than not, resulting in holes on the back end.
“I grew up more like an offensive defenseman when I was growing up in AAA,” he said. “Then, as I got older, I had to adapt to just different styles of play and what my strengths were, which was passing, so passing, breaking pucks out in transition.”
