Former Knight Evan Bouchard off to one of the hottest starts since the inception of the NHL

Evan Bouchard must be getting used to standing in a spot where he doesn’t have a whole lot of company.

The former London Knight keeps doing things that very few hockey players have ever done before.

Sometimes he finds himself in a category for having done something that has never been done.

Ever.

Bouchard’s three goals and five points in a season opener had never been done before.

Ever.

Knights head coach Dale Hunter points to a very valuable trait in Bouchard.

“He’s calm,” says Hunter. “When he gets the puck at the blue line he doesn’t get nervous or react too quickly. He is composed and that allows him to make the right play with the puck.”

Think about it. If you get the puck at an NHL blue line you have 85 feet of space from one end of that blue line to the other where people can pressure you or attack you.

Turn the puck over you’ll have a great view of a breakaway going the other way at your net.

Bouchard has carried that poise throughout his career with the Edmonton Oilers.

They made him the 10th overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft.

Bouchard’s three points in the second of a home-and-home against Vancouver to start the year gave him eight points in two games, which no defenceman had ever accomplished before in the first two games of any season.

The old record of seven had stood since the first year of the National Hockey League.

In 1917-18 Harry Cameron of the Toronto Arenas had seven.

Keep in mind that when Cameron set that very early record - the pop-up toaster did not exist.

Side note: Cameron was actually quite a player. He is also given credit for being one of the first players to use a curved stick (which could go a long way to explaining how someone could put up seven points in two games in 1917 and is often the first player credited with recording a Gordie Howe Hat Trick with a goal, an assist and a fight)

Bouchard has also proven himself to be quite a player and his place in solitary record-worthy places continues to expand like Creeping Charlie on a lawn.

The Seattle Kraken might have received some texts from other NHL coaches after they actually held Bouchard off the scoresheet entirely in the Oilers’ third game.

The Anaheim Ducks should have sent one of those texts.

Bouchard lit them up for two goals and an assist in a 5-2 Edmonton win on Oct. 8.

That left Bouchard with another share of another record involving Harry Cameron.

They are the only defencemen to score six times in the first four games of a season.

His performance against the Ducks placed Bouchard on a very small list of fastest defenceman to double digits.

Cameron and Summit Series legend and Canada’s Sports Hall of Famer Pat Stapleton of Strathroy were the only National Hockey League Defenceman to do it in three games.

The next two names on the list are Evan Bouchard and Bobby Orr.

So what is Bouchard doing differently, if anything, this season?

“What stands out to me is the space he creates for himself and his teammates,” says Oilers TV host Paige Martin. “He reads the play so well and makes it seem like has all the time in the world because his poise with the puck is so uniquely Evan Bouchard.”

As of Oct. 8 Bouchard had as many goals as the Dallas Stars.

You could look back and find signs of this in Bouchard’s time with the Knights.

Bouchard scored more points than any other London player when he put up 87 in his third year in 2017-18.

That total was more than any other defenceman in the league and it helped Bouchard to capture the Max Kaminsky Trophy as the Ontario Hockey League’s best defenceman.

Now he is doing the things he was doing then, but against the best players in the world.

Because Evan Bouchard has become one of the best players in the world.