Dougie Hamilton’s professional hockey career got off track before it could ever get started. After spending three seasons in the Ontario Hockey League, Hamilton was set to join the Bruins at the beginning of the 2012-13 season, where many expected him to make the jump straight to the NHL.

Only the start to the 2012-13 NHL season didn’t go as planned, as a collective bargaining dispute led to a lockout, and a delayed, condensed regular season. With no NHL team or spot to compete for, Hamilton returned to his junior team in Niagara, where he continued to dominate the competition to the tune of 41 points in 32 OHL games, until the NHL lockout finally ended.


Hamilton took the situation in stride, according to his Niagara head coach Marty Williamson.

“There always is [disappointment], but Dougie handled it fantastic,” Williamson said. “At that point, Dougie was too good for our league.

“The game was too easy for him, and there was disappointment, but he never let it show to his teammates.”

For a player with top-end talent like Hamilton, such that he was selected ninth overall in the 2011 draft and thought to be a steal at the time, Hamilton’s transition to professional hockey has been anything but rushed, even if his skill level may predicate a different timeline.

“We’ve had the opportunity to use him because of injury last year on the top pairing, so maybe he gains that little bit more experience quicker,” said Bruins head coach Claude Julien ahead of the team’s Saturday preseason game against the Capitals, during which Hamilton scored one of the team’s three goals. “I don’t know how many games that’s going to take him [to reach his peak], but as I’ve mentioned to you, I like the direction he’s taken and I also thought he had a real good playoff for us last year.


“Those are tough situations to play in for a young player and he handled it extremely well.”

Through the roadblock that was the 2012-13 lockout, and then entering a roster stocked with solid defensive talent, Hamilton hasn’t been leaned on heavily in the Bruins system. Entering year three as a pro that will begin to change, as the 21-year-old starts to make good on those expectations.

Williamson said Hamilton always had the talent at the junior level, and when he himself began to realize that, everything came together.

“When players of certain caliber–when their confidence starts to grow, and they’re part of World Junior teams, their game just takes off with them,” Williamson said. “And that’s where his biggest improvement came; he just started to realize how good he was.

“He always had the tools; he was a big man, he skated well with great vision and exceptional ability to make plays, and then his confidence just kind of took off.”

With over 100 NHL games under his belt, not including nearly 20 playoff games, the confidence for Hamilton at the NHL level may be forthcoming, or at least growing with every shift.

“When you’re young you’d like to think that you’re going to continue to improve, and I don’t think he’s reached his max or his peak yet,” Julien said.” We’re happy with him because we understand where he is in his development, but we also project a little more out of him as he gets older, bigger, and better.”


The speed of the game is what Williamson cited as the toughest element to transition to for a defenseman coming out of juniors. Yet when he was at his best last season, Hamilton was seen collecting the puck in his own zone, galloping through the neutral zone, and creating opportunities for himself or his teammates off the rush.

“For a defenseman, making reads are the most important thing, whether it’s reading the rush, reading the defensive zone, and when the game gets faster, it usually takes the defensemen a little bit of time to slow it down,” Williamson said. “That usually goes with the confidence, and it’s the same steps you take through juniors.

“When you first enter junior compared to leaving junior, and then when you first step into the pros, it’s like ‘wow, everybody is fast on the ice, and everybody can make plays,’ where in junior, maybe it’s one or two lines that can do it.”

Williamson is certainly a coach who is expecting more out of Hamilton moving forward, and having groomed other NHL defensive talents in the junior ranks, he may know what it takes.

“I was lucky enough to coach Alex Pietrangelo in St. Louis, and I found a lot of similarities between the two of them,” Williamson said. “Both real big men that skate well, and read the game and see the game very well.

“Obviously, Alex has turned into quite the NHL defenseman, and I thought Dougie was a can’t-miss.”

Entering his seventh year as a pro, Pietrangelo has three times received votes for the Norris Trophy, awarded to the league’s top defenseman. Twice, he’s finished in the top five of the voting.

With Zdeno Chara anchoring the Bruins blue line, a former Norris winner himself, and one of the top blue liners in the entire league, Hamilton may be a padawan of sorts. Yet the time will come when Master Chara, now 37 years old, will relinquish that role of top dog. Hamilton will force his way into that conversation of upper echelon defensemen.

“I think a year and a half under his belt and the way he progressed last year is really encouraging,” Julien said. “Again, we know he’s a good player, and getting stronger helped him get some experience, so that packaged together allows us to think that he can play some decent minutes for us.”