Laurent Dauphin doesn’t think the Tucson landscape has changed all that much since the last time he played here as a member of the American Hockey League’s Tucson Roadrunners. That was back in the 2018-19 AHL season.
As for whether Dauphin himself has changed since then? That’s another story.
A high-level Arizona Coyotes draft pick a decade ago who played for the Roadrunners before being traded, then reacquired, then traded away from the organization again, Dauphin’s third tour of duty in the desert has started with a flurry.
The AHL league office named Dauphin its player of the week Monday after his four-goal, five-point effort in Tucson’s two-game, show-me-something sweep of the Bakersfield Condors last weekend. The Roadrunners are now 3-1-0-0 as they hit the road again for a pair this weekend against the unbeaten San Jose Barracuda (4-0-0-0).
Over a nine-year professional career, Dauphin has skated 73 times at the NHL level and scored 82 goals in his 320 AHL appearances. Yet Sunday’s 5-3 Tucson win over Bakersfield in Tucson Arena marked the 27-year-old’s first professional hat trick.
Both Dauphin and Tucson head coach Steve Potvin said Dauphin’s maturity this time around makes him practically a different player.
“The biggest difference … is just his leadership and his poise and his ability to take information,” Potvin said. “It just shows the depth of confidence he has to be able to really look at situations, and look internally first.”
Dauphin agrees, noting that his recent experience playing in front of one of the NHL’s most rabid — and at times critical — fanbases has helped learn to calm his own nerves and focus on what he can control.
“Well, it’s a cliché but (I’m) more mature, for sure,” Dauphin said. “Playing 40 games in the NHL last year, and playing at (Montreal’s) Bell Center in front of everybody, I don’t think you can get a more stressful situation. … So now I feel like every game is a little easier and mentally I’m more relaxed.”
Dauphin played in 38 games for the Canadiens, spending the rest of the season with the Laval Rocket, Montreal’s top minor-league affiliate. This year, Dauphin appears to be setting himself up to be among the first call-ups for the Coyotes, should they need a seasoned, talented, left-handed forward.
On the surface, Dauphin’s return to Arizona might seem unlikely.
For one, he chose to return to a franchise that twice dealt him away. But, perhaps just as much, the native of Repintigny, Quebec, a suburb of Montreal that’s also located not even a half hour from Laval, leaves behind three seasons of playing essentially in his hometown.
Dauphin is honest about the reasons he was willing to move the nearly 2,500 miles back to the Grand Canyon state.
“Well, I felt it was my best chance to play in the NHL,” he said, hinting at the Coyotes’ rebuild as a potentially more direct path back to the world’s top league. “I felt wanted here, and I obviously know the place.”
He admitted that the Coyotes are “a different team. It’s the same logo and stuff, but from a business standpoint … they’re not the guys who traded me.
“It’s almost like a new team in the same city.”
Dauphin had company when he moved out west. His girlfriend is making him feel comfortable despite being so far away from home. The pair make their Tucson home near the Catalina Foothills.
Additionally, Jean-Sebastian Dea, also a Montreal-area native and Dauphin’s Laval teammate last year, is a Roadrunner. The two signed similar free-agent deals a day apart.
Through the Roadrunners’ first four games, Dauphin and Dea have combined to score six of Tucson’s 14 goals as a team.
“I grew up playing against him and playing with him, but we got a little bit closer early in the season last year,” Dea said. “He’s a great teammate — great player. So it’s nice to surround yourself with those kind of people that help you grow as a person and obviously as a hockey player as well.”
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