Without a place to showcase his talents to NHL scouts amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Matt Savoie, having just turned 17 years old, packed his bags in January 2021 for Dubuque, Iowa, a city that he came to know through a dinner with Buffalo Sabres forward Zemgus Girgensons.
Situated along the Mississippi River where Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois meet, Dubuque is home to the United States Hockey League’s Fighting Saints, with whom Girgensons starred and now holds an ownership stake. In the summer of 2019, more than a year before he eventually joined the team, Savoie dined with management, including Girgensons, to hear their pitch on why he should pick Dubuque over junior hockey in Canada.
“It’s pretty crazy to look back at that a couple years ago when I was in Dubuque, meeting him for the first time, getting to go to a dinner with him to talk about the options for the future,” Savoie said, reflecting on that fateful meeting. “Now, to share the same organization as a player like that, is pretty special.”
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Although Savoie chose the Western Hockey League over Dubuque that summer, the dinner eventually paid off for the Fighting Saints. When the WHL and Alberta Junior Hockey League were unable to operate in January 2021, Savoie left his family's home in the Edmonton area for Iowa.
While Savoie's remarkable play upon his return to the Ice in 2021-22 led to the 18-year-old forward's selection by the Sabres with the ninth pick in the NHL draft last month, his time in Dubuque the previous season, and on a nearby farm in Green Hazel, Wis., allowed him to showcase the high-end skill, competitiveness and passion for hockey that won over Buffalo's management and scouts.
From the moment Savoie arrived until the end of that memorable season, he led the Fighting Saints in scoring by averaging over a point per game in a league that included more college-aged players because many NCAA programs weren’t playing at that stage of the pandemic. He routinely faced off against players three years his senior, yet he was the catalyst that turned around the Fighting Saints’ season and helped them reach the playoffs.
“He was a game-changer from the second he put his skates on the ice in Dubuque, which, in our league, at (17) to do what he did, was remarkable,” marveled Fighting Saints General Manager Kalle Larsson.
'Giddy'
Oliver David had only seen video clips of Savoie when the Fighting Saints’ coach was dispatched to pick up his newest player at the airport in January 2021. David knew plenty about Savoie, though. Word of the teenager’s talent reached Dubuque years earlier.
As a 13- and 14-year-old, Savoie totaled 103 points in 34 games playing Under-15 AAA hockey. His dominance against his peers led him to play on the Under-18 circuit the following season.
When Savoie was mulling whether to go the WHL or USHL and, eventually, NCAA route in 2019, Larsson considered applying for the Edmonton-area native to join Dubuque at only 15 years old.
Instead, the WHL lured Savoie with a compromise that, although he wasn’t granted exceptional status to play a full season as an underage player, he could jumpstart his junior career by appearing in as many as 34 games with the Winnipeg Ice in 2019-20.
The Fighting Saints weren't planning to take any Canadian junior players when the pandemic prevented those leagues from operating in 2020-21, but Savoie was the exception.
“Yeah, I was giddy,” admitted David, now an assistant coach with EHC Biel-Bienne in Switzerland. “From the minute he stepped off the plane and into my car, he was ready to go. His mindset was dialed in, and he never looked back. Honestly, it was the first time I had been around someone with his kind of desire to win coupled with the ability to execute on what he wanted to accomplish at that age.”
With Savoie in the passenger seat, David drove to the rink to get a workout in with his new star forward. For 45 minutes, David ran Savoie through drills to learn more about the quiet kid who was willing to uproot his life to develop his skills on the ice. Some of Savoie’s new teammates stood along the glass to watch the workout, putting a face to the name they’d heard circulating through the hockey world.
Dubuque had a multitiered plan in place once Savoie decided to relocate to Iowa.
On the ice, he’d have a prominent role on a team that needed a jolt. When Savoie learned days earlier that the Alberta Junior Hockey League, like the WHL, wasn’t going to halt operations because of Covid-19, the Fighting Saints were in the throes of an ugly start to their season. Dubuque began 1-10 and were 5-13 when Savoie arrived. They were confident he’d thrive with the opportunity and ice time available.
“Everyone was excited,” said center Tristan Lemyre, a freshman at Denver University who lived with Savoie that season. “It’s a big name, Matt Savoie. All the boys were excited to meet and play with him. ... Getting a guy like that, that could have a big impact, that everyone liked as soon as he came, it was huge. We were thrilled to have him.”
Off the ice, though, Fighting Saints management moved swiftly to ensure Savoie would find comfort away from home. He was placed with longtime billets JoAnne and Don Gibson, who own a 150-acre hobby farm in nearby Hazel Green, Wis. Lemyre was an ideal roommate because he’s Canadian, albeit from Quebec, and knew Savoie’s older brother, Carter, an Edmonton Oilers prospect who played at Denver.
Savoie quickly immersed in life on the farm.
He and Lemyre routinely walked the Gibson's two dogs, cleaned up branches in the yard, gathered eggs that were laid by the farm's 15 to 20 chickens and fed the 15 to 20 cows and two horses. On cold winter nights, they played Euchre, a trick-taking card game, with JoAnne and Don. During their time there, Savoie and Lemyre rode snowmobiles, marveled at the sight of newly hatched chicks and reminisced about home while sitting fireside.
“It was the Canadian house,” joked JoAnne, a retired high school social studies teacher who’s housed Dubuque players since the 1990s and works as the club’s education coordinator. “Matt fit right in from the very beginning. He was kind of quiet in the beginning, but that got better as we went along. It’s always more difficult for guys when they show up after the season starts. He gelled with them, though, and his work ethic fit right in.”
Another level
With a few practices to prepare for his Dubuque debut, Savoie needed only a few shifts to show his new teammates what he could do on the ice.
He sliced through layers of the opposing defense with a skating stride Larsson described as “elite,” and, when carrying the puck with a defender attempting to thwart the possession, Savoie stickhandled around his opponent to create a scoring chance. He could create time and space when neither appeared attainable.
Buffalo Sabres first-round draft pick Matthew Savoie looks on during development camp at LECOM Harborcenter on Wednesday, July 13, 2022.
“We just sat there on the bench and said, “What the hell!” Lemyre laughed when describing a 7-4 win over Waterloo on Jan. 15, 2021. “’This kid is really, really good.’ He was very young for the league and had an impact right away. We knew he played in the WHL before, but he just flied around the ice.”
Savoie recorded his point 3:41 into his debut, a primary assist on the power play. He also had two goals, signaling that he would have no issue playing against older, bigger, stronger opponents. His standout debut reminded David of similar welcome-to-the-league moments in the NHL, particularly that of Mario Lemieux, who scored on his first shift with the Pittsburgh Penguins in October 1984.
“That was enough to feel it,” David said. “It was almost like, ‘OK, if he doesn’t score for 10 more games, that was still awesome. This is what he’s capable of doing.’ But that night really fueled him and the team rallied around him. ... I’ve been in junior hockey for 13 years before leaving and I haven’t seen a young player like that come in and be accepted without jealousy, ever. That was the first time. It’s a credit to his mindset and the way he goes about things.”
Savoie wasn’t boastful or selfish. His teammates noticed how he embraced life in Dubuque with the Fighting Saints. They knew it couldn’t have been easy to leave home amid the pandemic to join a group of mostly strangers. He was willing to do whatever he could to win games. Savoie just wanted to be part of a team. He was barely on one the previous season.
Although the WHL allowed Savoie to play games at 15 years old in 2019-20, he had to split the season between Winnipeg and Under-18 hockey. Savoie appeared in only 22 games with the Ice, totaling zero goals and seven assists while playing mostly on the third line.
In Dubuque, Savoie was given the opportunity he never received as an underage player in the WHL. Competing against an intradivisional schedule featuring four opponents with an average of 21 players 18 or older, Savoie had 21 goals and 38 points in his 34 games. He was the Fighting Saints’ leading scorer during that span.
“In his mind, he wants to be the man,” Larsson said of Savoie. “There are a lot of good players, but when the game is on the line, they can take a step back. When the game’s on the line, Matt Savoie’s like, ‘Give me the puck, I’m gonna win this game for you guys.’ He’s a killer.
“And he’s a shoot-first player. I think, these days, everybody wants to be the setup guy with the nice sauce pass. Matt Savoie wants to score, and he makes no jokes about it.”
Looking ahead
When the WHL was finally prepared to launch a full season in 2021-22, Savoie rejoined the Ice and, using the lessons learned in Iowa, established himself as one of the top draft-eligible prospects.
Former teammates, coaches and his billet family, the Gibsons, monitored from afar when Savoie totaled 41 goals and 102 points in 75 games between the regular season and playoffs with Winnipeg last season.
At the CHL/NHL Top Prospects Game in February, Savoie won the skills competition by finishing first in four events that showcased his skating and agility. The list of accomplishments padded his already impressive résumé and reaffirmed what David learned during that unprecedented season in Dubuque.
“Sometimes, I had to hold myself back from making a scene on the bench at how exciting some of the things were that he did,” David admitted.
Some prospects’ stock took a hit ahead of the 2022 NHL Draft because of their unwillingness to relocate when their respective leagues were unable to operate during the pandemic. Savoie’s skyrocketed with his performance in Dubuque, a move that demonstrated his desire to improve and win. Although it required uprooting his life and competing against much older players far away from home, what he accomplished in the USHL helped prepare him for what's next.
“He’s just so fun to watch,” said Lemyre. “I was really excited when I saw him get drafted by Buffalo. He deserves everything that’s happening. He’s got everything it takes to make it to the next level.”
