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Étienne Morin
Étienne Morin2023 NHL Draft Eligible
Position: D, Shoots: L
H/W: 6’0”, 176lbs
Date of Birth: 2005-03-29
Stats to Date: 67GP – 21G – 51A – 72PTS
To me, Étienne Morin is undoubtedly the best defenceman available out of the QMJHL this year. He has been absolutely dominant offensively, finishing second in scoring among draft-year eligible players from the Québec league. He only trailed Mathieu Cataford, a forward who played for a much better team offensively. Morin also joined Team Canada for the U18’s tournament, but only scored one assist in three games. It is a bit unfortunate that he could not join team Canada earlier in the tournament, because it seemed like he was definitely looking better as the tournament went on, being more confident and daring to show more creativity.
At first glance, it is quite possible to come out unimpressed with Morin. Yes, he shows some flashy skills and some smooth edges here and there, but his game is mostly very simple. Unfortunately, from a viewing perspective, simple is often paired with boring. As a scout, it is very important to understand that fun does not mean good, and boring does not mean bad. There are many roles that players can have, and there are many ways players can execute in order to be efficient and helpful for their team. Being flashy and exciting and skilled is great, and it’s even necessary to a certain extent, but so is being simple and efficient. Morin understands this perfectly, and if you dive down into the smaller aspects of his game and try to understand why he chooses to be more “boring”, you will hopefully appreciate the player that he is and will be able to see why he is not a prospect to overlook. I hope this breakdown will do just that.
In terms of projection, Morin will most likely not be a top pairing defenceman. He simply does not have the high-end talent and playstyle for that. That being said, he projects very well as a second or bottom pairing defenceman, exactly because of his playstyle. He will really need to fix some flaws in his game; the coming years of development will be very important, but if he is well coached and well trained, there is no reason for him not to become at least a bottom pairing defenceman, possibly middle pairing. I expect at least three years of development to make sure the flaws are fixed.
It is also worth mentioning how much ice time Morin gets. The Moncton defenceman is on the ice for north of 25 minutes per game very often, giving him a ton of responsibility and more time to grow and learn.
Skating
Overall, Morin’s skating is not one of his strengths, but it is not necessarily something to worry about too much either. There are some good aspects of his skating, but some that also limit his upside.
Morin uses his edges mostly to navigate nimbly at the blue line, but also in every situation when necessary, even in his own zone. He is strong on his skates and can make skilled moves laterally. He can turn on a dime and spin off pressure easily. He often does spin-o-rama moves at the blue line to completely throw off pressure and buy himself some time. The defenceman loves to stutter step at the offensive blue line as well. There are a plethora of moves he can pull off with his skating ability in terms of being agile and creative.
Here’s an example of this move, displaying his great agility.
Here is a clip of him dancing at the blue line trying to spot a good shooting lane, which ended up working. This is a very common play that NHL-caliber defencemen do all the time.
What is more problematic with Morin’s skating is his speed and explosiveness. For a player who is “only” six foot tall, you would expect him to have a much better acceleration and a much better pace. This really limits his projection to the next level. He can get caught by attackers that are much faster than him and this will only happen more as he gets to the next level. He will have to drastically improve these aspects of his skating in the coming years.
Here is an example. The opposing team dumps the puck, and Morin is flat out beaten by the forechecker, which cancels the icing. Now it is true that it was in the last thirty seconds of a game in which he had already played 34 minutes, but the explosiveness and speed is still visibly lacking.
Grade: 50
Shot
I will probably repeat myself when I talk about his smarts, but Morin is a very patient player in a lot of aspects, including his shot. When he receives the puck at the blue line, he is often very patient, using fake shots and some lateral moves to get a better shooting opportunity.
Here is an example of this. He receives the puck, fakes the shot and goes around the opposing forward for a better shot angle. This ability to look for a better shooting opportunity is what separates good defencemen from great defencemen offensively.
You can see how patient of a player he is here. He gets the puck in an excellent shooting spot, but decides to be patient and outwait the opponent to get an even better shot.
Morin has an underrated wrist shot, I feel like people don’t talk about it enough. His weight transfer is great, the ending result is often quite powerful. The only thing that is a bit underwhelming for now is the accuracy, but it can obviously be improved. Even with speed and limited space, he’s able to fire an impressive wrist shot. This year, he has been able to beat a ton of goaltenders cleanly with this shot selection.
Here is a tremendously skilled offensive play from Morin. He collects the puck at neutral ice and skillfully dances around a player before passing the puck to a teammate. He then activates offensively, gets the puck back and fires a tremendous wrist shot. Activating offensively is a very important aspect of the game to master as an NHL defenceman, as many teams have an entire offensive system that revolves around defencemen participating offensively. The Colorado Avalanche are a team that comes to mind, as they have many skilled offensive defencemen that can contribute offensively.
Here is an example where Morin sees some space he can work with and gets a nice shot using his outside leg.
His shot sometimes lacks a bit of power. He will obviously add some muscle/strength in the coming years, and hopefully his shot gets more powerful.
You can see how his wind-up slap shot sometimes lacks a bit of power here. In order to be an actual threat, his one-timer would have to be much more powerful in the NHL. He still has time to add some more power though, not overly concerning for now.
Here is a successful wind-up slapshot, where he did manage to get more power. Obviously, the shooting position is much better than in the last spot, but you can see that he is able to get some power on his wind-up shot, it just needs to be much more consistent.
Grade: 50
Skills
Once again, calm and poised would be two accurate adjectives to describe Morin’s skills. When executing stickhandles through an opponent, Morin makes it seem so easy. He simplifies his moves a lot and stays calm during the entire move, confident in his ability to get it done.
Here is an example of a somewhat risky move that he makes look so simple, without breaking a sweat.
Though I will expand on his passing ability when talking about his smarts, it is still worth highlighting the skill side of his passes. Morin is a strong and accurate passer, and can dish passes to players with speed, and even through opponents, with ease. He loves to sneak in a pass right under a player’s stick, really displaying the fact that he is a skilled passer.
You can see him doing just that in this clip. He receives the puck and continues moving forward, and as he sees the forechecker approaching, he breaks and dishes a pass precisely right under his stick.
That being said, Morin really struggles to execute moves at a higher speed. This definitely limits what he can do on the ice. He would definitely be more dangerous if he could create more with speed. It seems like every time he manages to move the puck up the ice and passes around a few players, he either gets it with decent speed, or with his hands, but rarely with a combination of both.
You can see in this clip that while he had great acceleration when entering the offensive zone, he stops moving his feet before executing any move. He was still able to attack the defender and go around him with a nice move to get a decent shot on net.
Grade: 55
Smarts
Morin is so calm with the puck when initiating the breakout. He looks like a true quarterback. Even at 5 on 5, he’s looking for those stretch passes to enter the offensive zone and barely gets pressured because everyone knows he will pass. If he took the opportunity to catch the opposing team off guard by carrying the puck himself more often, he would add much more to his arsenal in the transition game, and it would be easy for me to see a higher upside in him.
That being said, as previously mentioned, the way he calmly breaks the puck out of his zone and executes hail-mary type of passes often and with rarely turning the puck over makes me confident that he will translate this to the next level. He could easily become a puck retrieving defenceman in the NHL because he is so good at it. Many goals are scored on fast breaks where a defenceman spots a forward who is lurking at the offensive blue line ready to go score, and Morin has already mastered this aspect of his game at only 17 years of age. Pretty impressive.
Here are two examples of those passes, displaying his great vision.
At the blue line, Morin can also use his calmness to his advantage. When he receives the puck, he likes to wait to draw an opponent towards him before executing. He doesn’t do it because he doesn’t know what to do with the puck; he wants to take advantage of the space created by the forward attacking him. He thinks ahead of the play and is willing to manipulate opponents. This really shows his confidence and his intelligence at being efficient with the puck.
Here is an example of him waiting and baiting out an opponent, calming the play and even using a bit of deception.
Morin is very smart with what he does with his stick. When defending the rush, he continues his calm stance and disrupts the play with excellent stick placement, predicting his opponents’ move. He truly makes defending look effortless, which says a lot about his intelligence and understanding of the game.
Here is a clip that shows how he smartly defends the rush. He sees that the forward is entering the zone with speed, so he makes sure to keep him to the outside. Then, he calmly follows his movements and as soon as he makes a move to get by him, he places his stick perfectly to stop the puck and kills the rush chance. It is as efficient and precise of a defensive play as it can get, and that is because he understands how to defend.
Morin’s smarts are one of his best traits. They might not show up at first glance, but when you analyze his actions and movements, you can see that everything he does is calculated.
Grade: 55
Physicality/Compete
As mentioned when talking about his smarts, when it comes to defensive coverage, Morin really prefers to do most of it with his stick. He pins down the opponents’ stick with his own, he is excellent at disrupting the rush with his stick, and he loves to slightly cross check opponents, just enough for it to be annoying for the player but to go unnoticed by the ref.
The Moncton defenceman will still use his body if necessary. He is not really the type of player to wow you with open ice hits, he is rather smart with how he uses his body. He positions himself wisely to separate opponents from the puck, and often combines both his body and his stick to win puck battles.
Here is an example of this. He adequately imposes himself in-between the forechecker and the puck, allowing his team to gain possession of the puck and initiate the breakout.
Here is also an example of some fun physicality he can show while defending the rush.
You can see how Morin combines the usage of his stick and his body in this clip. He sees that a puck battle is going to happen, so he places his stick right under his opponent’s stick, lifts it up to not only prevent him from touching the puck but also to mess with his stability, allowing him to use his body to fully separate his opponent from the puck. Puck battles are an important part of a defenceman’s game, and showing that level of expertise is quite impressive.
Morin can seem like a “soft” player who does not have a really high compete level at first, but as explained before, he is simply really patient and meticulous with his movements. There is no significant lack of compete or effort with Morin, and you can clearly see that when it is time to be physical and intense, he can do it.
Grade: 55
OFP: 53.25
A note on the 20-80 scale used above. We look at five attributes (skating, shooting, puck skills, hockey IQ and physicality) for skaters and six for goalies (athleticism/quickness, compete/temperament, vision/play reading, technique/style, rebound control and puck handling). Each individual attribute is graded along the 20-80 scales, which includes half-grades. The idea is that a projection of 50 in a given attribute meant that our observer believed that the player could get to roughly NHL average at that attribute at maturity.