For draft prospect Gabe Perreault, hockey is truly a family affair

On snowy, icy days in Plymouth, Mich. — and there are plenty of snowy, icy days in the town 10 miles west of Detroit — July Perreault would still park her car in the driveway of the townhouse she shared with her youngest son, Gabe.

In hockey households, garages are no places for cars. The Perreaults had fashioned theirs into a shooting range where Gabe, a left winger on the U.S. National Team Development Program’s Under-18 team, could practice his skills. On off days and practice days, morning or night, he would hole up in the garage and work on his release by firing pucks into tarps.

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A snow-covered car was a minor sacrifice for July to make in the grand scheme of Perreault’s goal to play in the NHL. After all, she had already made a much larger one, moving with Perreault to Plymouth from their home base of Hinsdale, Ill., where her husband and Perreault’s father, Yanic, resides while serving as a development coach for the Chicago Blackhawks. Their Hinsdale home features another shooting range in their basement, where Perreault and his three hockey-playing older siblings, Jeremy, Liliane, and Jacob, grew up fine-tuning their skills.

“I think that part of his game really improved,” Yanic said. “He’s always been really skilled, but I think with the commitment he’s putting towards hockey, I think it started to pay off.”

Perreault led the U.S.’s U18 team with 53 goals and 132 points this season, breaking Auston Matthews’ single-season scoring record of 117 points and flaunting skills that have catapulted him into top-10 conversation at next week’s draft. His knack for goal-scoring, coupled with his ability to create “plays you don’t even see on TV,” according to U.S. linemate Ryan Leonard, make him an enticing option for the Flyers at No. 7 overall.

“When you’re getting to work with a player like him, you get to see some really fun stuff,” former development program head coach Dan Muse said. “And the way he plays and the way he thinks, you don’t see it every day.”

Yanic played for six teams over 14 NHL seasons, making a name for himself as a faceoff wizard. But it was July who had the earliest influence on Gabe’s hockey journey, serving as his coach when he was 3 years old in Magog, Quebec, where the family lived when Perreault was born.

“It was almost like half hockey and half babysitting a little bit,” Yanic said. “But I remember she was bringing toys and little things after the practices or games just to make sure if they had a good game or a good practice, she would give them little things to reward them.”

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Yanic would take over as Perreault’s coach nearly a decade later when the family moved to the Chicagoland area. For two full seasons, Yanic coached Perreault’s AAA Chicago Mission team. With his background in development, Yanic believed that wins were less important for young players than the freedom to create plays and experience different positions and situations. He encouraged his players and his children to not be afraid to make a play, and if they lost the puck, they just needed to backcheck hard.

“Growing up, I wasn’t the biggest guy,” said Perreault, who measured in at just under 5-foot-11 and 163 pounds at the combine. “So I had to learn a different way to affect the game. So I was always making plays, and my dad growing up, he’d always tell us to be creative.”

In Yanic’s eyes, Perreault was always a natural playmaker. He excelled at playing with his eyes up and making smart decisions with the puck. Perreault was adept at moving the puck quickly, growing into that area of his game to compete with his bigger, faster, and stronger peers. He also grew up watching Blackhawks games with his family and had a front-row seat to the 2015 Stanley Cup champions.

“I think probably by watching them, too, he probably realized how they would move the puck quick and it probably helped his hockey IQ,” Yanic said.

While Perreault has always been relatively undersize, his older brother Jacob is “a little bit thick and a lot bigger,” according to Yanic. Jacob, the No. 27-overall pick in 2020 by the Anaheim Ducks, played major junior with the OHL’s Sarnia Sting before making the transition to pro hockey.

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But Perreault decided to go a different route with the national team, one that better suited his development goals. With fewer games, Perreault would be able to focus on getting stronger off the ice. Perreault estimated that he entered the program at 5-foot-9, 140 pounds and has grown roughly two inches and put on more than 25 pounds since then.

While U18 director of sports science Brian Galivan assisted him in the gym, July helped in their Plymouth kitchen with her signature dishes, including potato soup and pregame chicken parmesan.

“I was so grateful for her to come out and do that for me,” Perreault said. “Those home-cooked meals helped me put on so much weight.”

That increased strength manifested on the ice from his U17 year to his U18 year. Perreault improved his ability to hold onto the puck, his speed, and the power of his shot. He also found chemistry with linemates Leonard and Will Smith, who are also projected to be first-round picks in this year’s draft. Perreault served as the brains of the operation, regularly setting up his teammates for scoring success by using his excellent vision, his ability to adjust on the fly, and his deceptive puck skills.

The trio established themselves as the program’s most productive line ever, with Perreault leading the way in scoring. Not only did his release get quicker, but he also continued to get better at putting himself in a position to score. That’s a skill, but it’s also a nod to his ability to anticipate and read time and space, according to Muse.

“Take what you’ve seen over two years, and you’ve seen him do it starting against players that are older than him in junior hockey, playing against players his own age in international hockey,” Muse said. “But then seeing him do it against players on teams that are significantly older in college hockey, it’s a pretty good base to be able to say that this is going to be able to continue to translate here from one level to the next.”

The rebuilding Flyers are in need of an influx of skill and smarts, and Perreault has the potential to bring boatloads of it to his future NHL team. He met with 23 teams at the combine, including the Flyers. In his interview, general manager Danny Brière asked him questions in French, which Perreault speaks at home with his family.

Before he sets his sights on the NHL, Perreault will head to Boston College in the fall alongside his national team linemates Smith and Leonard. He will also team up there with 2022 Flyers first-rounder Cutter Gauthier. Smith, a self-proclaimed “pretty convincing guy” and one of Perreault’s best friends, helped sell Perreault on attending BC.

“Being around him so much, he didn’t really have a choice to say no,” Smith said.

This offseason, Perreault will continue to focus on building strength in the gym and improving his separation speed. He has already spent some time with his father on the ice, working on his skills and his faceoffs, an area that Yanic argues is important for wingers to master, too.

But while Perreault is a different player than his dad was, his influence — and the influence of each member of his family — helped mold him into the prospect he is today.

“You want your kids, for Gabe, just to keep doing what he’s doing,” Yanic said. “He’s been so focused and so disciplined that I’m sure if he keeps doing that, he’s going to keep getting better.”

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