(Photo courtesy: Natalie Shaver/OHL Images)
On Sunday, the 2024 Memorial Cup winner will be decided in Saginaw as the London Knights take of the host Spirit in their eighth meeting in the last 37 days. The two teams met in the OHL Final in May and meet for the second time at the tournament at 6 CT on TSN.
It’s been an incredible run for the Knights and forward Jacob Julien. The 19-year-old was drafted by the Winnipeg Jets in the fifth round in Nashville almost a year ago. Julien has three assists in three games at the Memorial Cup and 18 points (9G, 9A) in 18 OHL playoff contests this spring.
Jets director of player development, Jimmy Roy has been keeping an eye on Julien’s development this season. Roy says that Julien is a quick study when it comes to understanding what he has to do to get better which includes working on his skating and decision making.
“When Mike (Keane) and I go in there and talk about ‘You gotta move your feet, you gotta be more engaged physically, you gotta win more 50/50 battles’ and you talk about certain things that happen in a game and he’s like ‘Yeah, I know I should have done that there, yeah, you’re right’,” said Roy.
“A good example is he asked me about faceoffs, he wasn’t doing very well on them, and he was looking for what he could do to get better. I asked him ‘Do you watch video of other teams centremen before games?’ and I told him to start watching and see what their tendencies are and see what how you can counter that. He took it one step further and he would watch the video and he had a book that he would make notes in. He’s engaged in his development, right? That’s impressive.”
Keep in mind, this is Julien’s first full season of major junior hockey. In 2022-23, he began the season in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League before joining the Knights in November and put up 16 points in 40 games. This season, he finished with 78 points in 67 games.
The 6-foot-4, 181-pound centre is in the right place to grow his game. The Knights went to the OHL conference finals last spring (Julien had seven points in 20 games) and Sunday’s Memorial Cup final will be his 21st postseason contest in 2024. Plus he’s centering one of the team’s top lines with Denver Barkey (2023 Flyers 3rd round pick) and Ruslan Gazizov.
“You can’t teach that. You can’t teach the amount of pressure on you in those games and even though they won the OHL championship and going into those long series, you can never get too down on yourself or get too high when you win a game,” said Roy.
“Those are the things that you learn that you can’t teach. You can’t teach that. That’s one of the biggest things about playoffs, players learn stuff that it’s very difficult to teach in the offseason, regular season. Those (playoff) games, those situations, those are all learning experiences and failing last year (to win the OHL) is helping them succeed this year.”
During the Knight’s second round series against the Kitchener Rangers, Julien went on a goal scoring tear with seven goals in three games including back-to-back hat tricks in Game’s 3 and 4. But the London product wasn’t focusing on that in his post-game chats with Roy and Keane.
“I knew he had scored those goals. We talk to our players after every game via text with a little self-evaluation, he never mentioned either hat trick or any goals. He talked about what he wanted to work on and what he wanted to get better at, and he mentioned some things he did well,” said Roy.
“But he never mentioned that (the goals) and I’m like ‘Hey, Jacob. C’mon man, you can tell us you scored three goals, I’ve seen the scoresheet, right?’ He’s a player development dream, he’s a good kid.”
