"I think there were a few gasps," Duclair, who racked up 32 points (10 goals, 22 assists) with Florida during the 2020-21 campaign, said with a chuckle. "Hopefully, they all come back here again for the next step. It was awesome for me to get back out here and put some smiles on some of their faces, for sure."
Making sure to spend time with as many kids as possible throughout the session, Duclair made his way through multiple stations set up on the ice. He participated in a small scrimmage, showed off his slick stickhandling skills, shared some skating tips and answered every question that the class fired his way.
"When you're that young, your skating and stickhandling is where you want to start," Duclair said when asked about passing down some knowledge. "For myself, if they have any questions they could come up to me and ask anything they want. You really just want them to have fun. They'll learn pretty quickly."
Thinking back to his own youth hockey days in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, Duclair said he still remembers how special it was when a group of players from the Canadiens made a similar visit to one of his camps.
"When I was a kid and got a chance to meet some Habs players, I was starstruck," Duclair recalled. "It was fun for me as well as it was for them. It was a good time. I'm still a kid at heart, so it's easy for me to come out here and talk to the kids. I enjoyed it and am definitely looking forward to doing it again."
For one Learn to Play participant in particular, meeting Duclair was a dream come true. Becoming a huge Panthers fans this past season, six-year-old Musa Siddiqui first popped up on Duclair's radar when a Tweet from his father, Imran, was spotted by the team in May. In the post, Mussa was shown holding a teddy bear he'd named after Duclair because "he's brown and plays hockey like me."
