Utah Prospect Report: Josh Doan will benefit from the perfect development environment

When the Utah Hockey Club assigned Josh Doan to Tucson of the American Hockey League on Oct. 29, Doan sent a simple text message to Roadrunners coach Steve Potvin: ‘Hey, what’s the schedule? Let’s go!’

“It’s not like he was being passive about it or just accepting it,” Potvin said. “He knows that he’s capable of playing in the NHL. It definitely hurts him to come down, but he’s going to come down and he’s going to work on his game. That’s just the type of kid he is.”

Doan was not happy about being sent down. He did not fully agree with Utah coach André Tourigny’s assessment that his game lacked confidence. He did not think that much about his game had changed other than his production level.

“I’m happy that’s something they expect out of me is to be somebody that produces at that level but sometimes that’s just the way the game flows,” he said. “Look at the game versus Ottawa. I had three or four chances that four out of five times I put in the back of the net and I didn’t. I had a couple odd-man rushes and passes into the slot that just didn’t go in. Look at the whole team during that four-game span, we had, I think, two five-on-five goals. It was just one of those things where we weren’t scoring as a group

“I think coming down here was more about me finding my offense than my confidence because confidence-wise, I still feel good and expect to produce.”

Doan already has, scoring two goals in his second game with the Roadrunners and ringing a potential third off the post. Given the circumstances, it’s fair to expect a lot more of that in the days and weeks ahead.

If you were to craft the perfect development environment for an NHL prospect, it’s hard to imagine a better incubator than the one Doan enjoys. First and foremost, his father, Shane, played the game for 21 seasons, offering Josh, 22, access to dressing rooms, hockey culture and the advice of countless pros from the time he could play mini-sticks.

Second, Shane endured a similar demotion early in his career when the Coyotes sent him to the Springfield Falcons for 39 games of the 1997-98 season — his third as a pro. He understands the challenges — physical and emotional — of such a demotion.

“He told me that when he went down, he moped and he pouted and he struggled out of the gates,” Josh said. “He didn’t do too well and it didn’t help his case at all for getting back to the NHL.

“So he was like, ‘Go down. Be you. Have fun. Be energetic. Work hard. Make sure you’re having fun at the rink every day like you always do and the rest will take care of itself.'”

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When Josh arrived in Tucson, he immediately reconnected with family members a couple hours north in Scottsdale, but he also reconnected with his former teammates. Sometimes, that meant leaning on veterans Austin Poganski and Travis Barron for advice. Other times, it meant going out to eat at The Monica, North Italia or Charro Steak & Del Rey and yucking it up with Maksymilian Szuber, Lleyton Moore, Montana Onyebuchi, Curtis Douglas and Ryan McGregor.

“These are the guys that I’m the most comfortable around,” Doan said. “They welcomed me into pro hockey and allowed me to take my game to the next step last year so this is the perfect group to be around.”

The coach who will be shepherding Doan’s quest to return to Utah has an even deeper connection. Potvin coached Doan while he was a youth hockey player with the Jr. Coyotes in Scottsdale, Arizona. While serving as the Coyotes skills coach, Potvin conducted skills sessions with Doan, Maple Leafs forward Mattew Knies and other players in the Phoenix metro area. The duo’s connection goes back to Doan’s early teen years.

“I remember watching him do drills and demo stuff for us and he’d go a million miles an hour which was really cool to see as a kid,” Doan said. “He made you want you to do it right away, and the right way.

“He would always end things with ‘capiche?’ Every guy on the team had to say ‘capiche’ when he was done talking or finished a meeting so he would know we all understood. I don’t even know if he remembers doing it, but it’s stuck in every one of my buddies’ heads that I played with growing up.”

Despite Doan’s family name, which is hockey royalty in the Valley of the Sun, Potvin didn’t know Josh on sight. He actually greeted another kid as ‘Doaner’ before humorously being corrected.

“I hope he doesn’t remember that,” Potvin quipped. “The truth is, Josh is just such a likable kid that he builds relationships with anyone that’s coaching him.”

Maybe so, but a litany of former players will cite Potvin as a major influence on their games and their mindset — a list that includes NHLers Conor Garland, Michael Bunting, Matias Maccelli and Doan. Still, Potvin defers credit when discussing the impact he has made on Doan.

“To have someone as honest as Shane is so important in his life,” Potvin said. “He just sees things for how they are and he instructs and helps Josh in the right way. I don’t think there’s ever any pressure or any anxiety behind his delivery. I think he’s just always trying to collect information and help his son out.”

Potvin also sees great value in Josh Doan’s return to the AHL.

“When you play in the NHL, you’re not always put in situations that are going to help you have success as an individual,” he said. “When you come down to the American League, you’re going to get a lot of time on the ice. Josh is going to get far more PK reps than he had last year. He’s going to be utilized on the PP. He’s going to get first-line minutes. It’s going to help him develop into a complete hockey player.”

Tourigny and Utah GM Bill Armstrong never minded that Guenther was angry about his demotion to the WHL or the AHL earlier in his career. As long as he used it as fuel — he always did — they never worried about his ultimate progression.

They feel the same about Doan.

“I actually think Josh played fairly well when he was with the club,” Armstrong said. “But at times, when you’re a young player, your ice time gets cut a little bit and you’re trying to find your confidence in season. The NHL is not kind for that so we’d rather have him in a place where he’s going to get to play PP, play PK, number-one line minutes, be in all situations and keep developing and finding his game so when he comes back up here he can find a role on this team. 

“I think you have a better chance to do that when you’re playing big minutes in the American League and you’re growing your confidence down there.”

Doan has specific areas of his game that he plans to work on like carrying the puck with speed through the neutral zone and creating opportunities off the rush, but this stint with Tucson is as much a mental refocus as it is a chance to refine skills.

And if that focus should ever wander, he has Potvin to reel him back in.

“We had probably a 25-minute conversation [on Wednesday] about the mental side of the game,” Doan said. “It’s really cool to push ideas off each other. He’s taken that mindset part of the game to another level with a lot of guys here and and especially towards me with helping me find my game and be confident in my game.

“When I got here he said, ‘I don’t really need to explain to you what’s going on right now because I’m sure you’ve figured it all out in your head already.’ He puts a lot of faith in me to know what I need to do to take care of business, but there’s still an element of him making sure I stay on track for what the plan is and should be.”

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Utah prospect Will Skahan

The Skahan name was familiar to Boston College before Will left the United States National Team Development Program and moved to Chestnut Hill this year. His dad, Sean Skahan, worked as a strength and conditioning coach at BC for the 2001-02 season before taking a job as a conditioning coach with the Anaheim Ducks that began a 19-year NHL career.

“Let’s face it, we see these program kids a lot through the recruiting process anyway,” said BC associate head coach Brendan Buckley. “That national team probably gets watched more than any team in North America by scouts. They play everywhere and they get a lot of good players on that team each year so a lot of the college teams and obviously NHL teams are watching those games.” 

It helped the relationship, however, that Buckley was still playing at BC while Sean Skahan was working there. The BC coaching staff watched the California kid grow to 6 feet 5 and blossom into an elite prospect at the NTDP. They were all over him in the recruiting process, and they were an easy sell given BC’s pedigree as one of college hockey’s blue bloods.  

“He’s obviously a big bodied kid who still has room to grow a little bit,” Buckley said. “He’s still so young (18) and he moves well. We were impressed with how well he defended throughout the recruiting process. He’s a big defenseman that can clear the front of the net.”

Second-ranked BC is stacked on the blue line so Skahan is playing third-pair minutes (10 to 13 per game) and logging time on the penalty kill. But Utah sees potential in other areas of his game.

“What I like about him is he’s got the ability to move a puck,” Utah director of player development Lee Stempniak said. “He’s got that feel to find the middle option; find the center on a breakout. He’s willing to hang onto the puck an extra second, look past the first option and find the second option. His puck moving has impressed me probably the most out of everything in his game so far.”

Skahan’s play has also fostered confidence in his coaching staff.

“A lot of times, you get freshman that you may be trying to hide a little bit at the beginning of the year,” Buckley said. “But he’s been good wherever we have tried him. He can play against any line.

“With all young defensemen, there’s that adjustment period of what they can do offensively, what they can get away with, and what they can’t get away with. He’s in that window right now of finding out what’s going to work in the future, but for a kid his size, he can skate, he’s got a good stick, he defends hard and he’s got a little bit of a mean streak in him. There’s a lot to like.”

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Utah prospect Jonathan Castagna

Cornell is only two games into its season and already the expectations for Jonathan Castagna have increased. After finishing fourth on the team with 11 goals and 25 points as a true freshman, Castagna, 19, is centering the Big Red’s top line, he’s playing net front on the first power-play unit, he’s killing penalties and he’s taking key faceoffs for coach Mike Schafer.

 “Jon has been on a great development track,” Schafer said. “All aspects of his game continue to improve, especially in the special teams area. He has a tremendous work ethic and focus to improve on a daily basis and his leadership skills are impressive.”

Castagna had a pair of assists and was a plus-two in a weekend sweep of No. 6 North Dakota that put the nation on notice that Cornell will be a force this season. The Big Red hosts Yale and Brown in back-to-back games this weekend. For the 2023 third-round pick (No. 70), there will be ample opportunity to punch his ticket to the next level with his play this season.

“That’s something that we’ve talked about with him,” Stempniak said. “In your first year in college, you want to be respectful, but there’s an opportunity for him to go in and grab hold of it and really be a leader on that team with his play.”

The main skill that will help Castagna do so is his speed.

“When you watch games, your eyes are drawn to him and it’s really easy to like him just based on how fast he skates, how competitive he is, how high his motor is,” Stempniak said. “He’s the guy that’s always back and forth, up and down the ice, always around the puck, always looking to make an impact. That’s his game in a nutshell. That’s the foundation of his game.

“One of the goals for his development has been refining his puck touches. It’s almost allowing his hands to catch up to his feet. At the speed he’s playing the game, he creates so many opportunities in transition, off the rush. So it’s about turning those into more offensive opportunities with his puck play, with his decision making with the puck, and he’s made big strides in that area from last year.”

Utah’s development staff never likes to put ceilings on players for obvious treason, but the general feeling in the scouting community about Castagna is that he could be a third-line center or wing if he elevates his puck game.

“He’ll kill penalties. He’ll take faceoffs. He’ll forecheck. He’ll be physical,” Stempniak said. “It’s just about trying to push the ceiling higher, but we always talk about guys that help you win games. He’s that type of guy when you watch him play.”

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Utah prospect notes

• Tij Iginla, Utah’s first-round pick (No. 6) in the 2024 NHL Draft, is off to a torrid start. Heading into Friday’s game against Saskatoon, Iginla had nine goals and 17 points in 10 games.
• Dimitri Simshev (2023, No. 6) is third among Yaroslavl Lokomotiv defenseman in time on ice per game at 17:38, trailing 33-year-old veteran Martin Gernat and 31-year-old veteran Andrei Sergeyev. Lokomotiv (44 points) had an 11-point lead in the Western Conference heading into the weekend and is a favorite to win the Gagarin Cup.
• Simashev’s teammate Daniil But (2023, No. 12), also 19 years old, has six goals and 14 points while averaging just 11:32 of ice time on a veteran-laden team.
• Utah defense prospect Maksymilian Szuber (2022, No. 163) had to take some time off this summer due to an injury that set him back early in the season, but he is starting to display his defensively sound, high-IQ game, Potvin said. He has three assists in three games.
• Here’s what Potvin had to say about Utah defense prospect Artem Duda (2022, No. 36), who is in his first year of pro hockey after a wild ride to North America. “Artem Duda is a version of Vladislav Kolyachonok. He’s a player that is fully committed. He understands his process. He has to get used to the speed of the game, protect the inside and maybe invest a little bit more physically. If he does that, he’s going to be a full-time NHL player.”

Top photo of Josh Doan via Tucson Roadrunners

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