Penguins A to Z: Is Nathan Legare NHL ready?
With the Penguins in the midst of their offseason, the Tribune-Review is looking at all 48 players currently under NHL contracts to the organization in alphabetical order, from mid-level prospect Niclas Almari to top-six winger Jason Zucker.
Nathan Legare
Position: Right winger
Shoots: Right
Age: 20
Height: 6-foot
Weight: 206 pounds
2020-21 QMJHL statistics: 33 games, 38 points (16 goals, 22 assists)
Contract: Three-year entry-level contract with a salary cap hit of $809,167 that has yet to begin.
(Note: According to Cap Friendly, Legare is still exempt from waivers in the event he is sent to the American Hockey League.)
Acquired: Third-round draft pick (No. 74 overall), June 22, 2019
2020-21 season: While most leagues in North America were on hiatus this past fall due to the pandemic, the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League forged on and opened play in October.
Things did not go smoothly as the league had multiple stoppages and delays for obvious reasons.
But the eastern corner of Canada was one of the only places you could see high-end competitive hockey in the Western Hemisphere for most of the autumn.
For the Penguins’ concerns, that meant two of their top prospects, Legare and forward Sam Poulin (the club’s first-round pick in 2019) were furthering their development on this continent.
Legare opened the season with the Baie-Comeau Drakkar. Serving as that team’s captain, he averaged a point per game with 14 points (five goals, nine assists) and 14 contests.
But as Baie-Comeau struggled in the standings, Legare was traded to the powerful Val-d’Or Foreurs on Dec. 20, joining Poulin.
In 19 regular season games with Val-d’Or, Legare collected 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists).
He thrived in the postseason. Skating on a line with Poulin and Jakob Pelletier, a first-round pick in 2019 of the Calgary Flames, Legare led the QMJHL postseason with 14 goals while putting up 18 points in 15 games as Val-d’Or fell in the President’s Cup final, 4-2, to the Victoriaville Tigres.
In the middle of his disjointed QMJHL season, Legare was invited to the Penguins’ brief training camp in early January.
The future: With his junior career complete, Legare is going to make his professional debut in 2021-22.
Which end of Pennsylvania will that debut take place? That’s a good question.
Just based on his raw attributes, Legare possesses a lot of the assets the Penguins need.
That’s to say he’s a power forward who offers a physical element, forechecks and backchecks like a demon and he can put pucks on net as he has a knack for finding soft areas in the offensive zone for linemates to set him up with shots. The only real knock against him is a need to spruce up his skating ability.
Is he NHL ready?
Considering his only exposure to the NHL has been a handful of games in the 2019 preseason, Legare could stand to benefit from refinement at the American Hockey League level with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton next season.
Plus, if Penguins general manager Ron Hextall’s track record during his stint as the Philadelphia Flyers’ general manager is any indication, he tends to play the long game with prospects, allowing time for development instead of forcing them to prematurely fill holes at the NHL level.
(Note: As a pending first-year professional, Legare is not eligible to be selected in this month’s expansion draft.)
Legare’s time with the Penguins will come, it just might not be this fall.
Seth Rorabaugh is a TribLive reporter covering the Pittsburgh Penguins. A North Huntingdon native, he joined the Trib in 2019 and has covered the Penguins since 2007. He can be reached at srorabaugh@triblive.com.
Remove the ads from your TribLIVE reading experience but still support the journalists who create the content with TribLIVE Ad-Free.