There’s a clip that the Moose Jaw Warriors put on social media this week with Tanner Jeannot dumping the puck in at centre and knocking a Prince Albert Raider defenceman rear end over tea kettle with a solid hip check, and then calmly stepping onto the bench.
The sentence ‘@PREDSNHL fans, meet the newest member of Smashville, Tanner Jeannot’ tagged along with it is for the Oxbow product who earlier this week signed his first National Hockey League Contract, a three-year deal with the Nashville Predators.
Jeannot, a left wing, has had a remarkable season with the Warriors in his fourth year with the club. Scoring 40 goals and 40 assists, he set career highs in those, as well as his 80 points and plus/minus of +49.
“It’s been really special,” said Jeannot, who is now getting ready with the rest of the Warriors for a second round battle with the Swift Current Broncos. “It’s been a lot of hard work to get here and I’ve had so much support and help a long the way. I want to thank everyone who’s helped me get to where I am…
“It’s what every kid dreams of doing, to sign an NHL contract and so I know that the work’s just beginning now and I’m excited to get going with Nashville.”
That won’t come until the summer but Jeannot will be going to a development camp and the team will be going into development tournament in the fall as well.
Before signing, Jeannot talked to people within the Predators organization and they told him about the opportunities within the club.
“It seemed like it would be a really good fit for me there,” he said. “I’m really excited to get things going.”
Main camp is a strong possibility for Jeannot, who has been to a few camps in the last couple of years with National Hockey League teams like Washington and Minnesota despite being drafted by neither the Western Hockey League nor the NHL.
As the Predators organization understands the nuances in Jeannot’s game – a strong game in the offensive zone being one of them – the Predators will be working with Jeannot to make his game even better.
“They’re going to be contacting me throughout the entire summer and helping me develop as a player and it should be good,” he said.
The Preds seemed to like his size and speed.
“Once I get going it’s pretty hard to get knocked off the puck, so they liked that part of my game,” Jeannot said. “(They like) going to the dirty areas that not everyone likes to go to and not backing down from battles, getting to the front of the net and jamming at pucks. Also, work along the wall and getting pucks into teammates hands and not turning it over.”
Jeannot hopes to have one last long year of playoffs in the WHL with the Warriors, who won their first ever Scotty Munro Trophy as regular season champions.
“After that we’ll start focusing on what’s going to happen next year,” he said. “We’ll most likely start in Milwaukee with their AHL team and go to camps in the summer and see where I’m at.”
It’s a long way to come from for Jeannot, who played a year of midget AA hockey with the Apex Bruins before heading to Yorkton for a season of midget AAA and then off to his first Warrior camp in 2014. Jeannot played a year of bantam AA with the TS&M Bruins in 2011-12 also, notching 21 goals and 11 assists for 32 points in 24 games.
“Everybody that’s been in my career and had influence on me, I couldn’t have done it without them,” he said. “Growing up in Oxbow and playing in Estevan, I’ve had a lot of coaches and teammates playing that helped me to what I’ve become today. Coaches that I had in Estevan were Dalton Giblett and Nick Sereggela and Dan Pratt and guys like that that just helped me along the way. They taught me some valuable lessons and skills that I’ve used and continue to use to this day.”
The Warriors’ second round playoff series with the Broncos starts in Moose Jaw Friday night.
