VANCOUVER — Accustomed to coaching gifted identical twins, Willie Desjardins was still astonished at something he saw from the Ruck brothers early in their rookie season with the Medicine Hat Tigers.
“There is one play I remember,” Desjardins said when asked about Liam and Markus, identical twins from Osoyoos, B.C., who are projected to be late first-round picks on Friday. “Liam was standing in front of the net, the righty. Markus picked up the puck at the wall at the blue line as a lefty. He’s coming in and all of a sudden Liam spins and Markus throws it back door right on his stick.
“I go, ‘How did you know, Markus, that Liam was going to spin and go there? Markus looked at me, like, ‘I thought you saw the game better than that, coach.’ I said, ‘No, really, how did you know?’ When Liam was standing there in front, he just rolled the toe of his stick. He didn’t (point) his whole stick, just rolled his blade. Markus knew and put the puck right there.”
The twins remember the play from 20 months ago, before the Rucks’ massive breakout season finished this spring with them atop the Western Hockey League in scoring. Liam said it was during a home game against Regina.
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“I just kind of just put my stick out behind my back and turned around and just missed the puck,” he recalled. “(Markus) saw my signal and threw it across the crease, but it just missed.
“I think it’s mostly just being familiar with each other. We’ve played a lot of years, a lot of games, a lot of practices together, so we just kind of know each other’s tendencies.”
Sure, and Daniel and Henrik Sedin used to say the same thing when they were confounding opponents with the Vancouver Canucks: it was all just reps and familiarity.
But every National Hockey League coach the twins had, including Desjardins for three seasons near the end of the players’ Hall-of-Fame careers, saw something more — an unquantifiable but unmistakable mental connection between the players.
It was as if there was a Star Wars-like “force” connecting them beyond DNA.
And now Desjardins sees the same thing with Markus and Liam, who, like Hank and Danny, are a playmaking centre and goal-scoring winger.
“Oh, for sure,” Desjardins said. “There’s stuff that they see. They just have that. They do things and you go, ‘How did they know?’ I think when they are together, there’s just another level of chemistry and ability that goes with that. So I do think that, you know, whoever gets one (in the draft) will want to try to acquire the other somewhere along the line so they can have both.”
Desjardins managed to get both Rucks in Medicine Hat by trading up in the 2023 WHL draft to select Markus 21st after choosing Liam ninth.
But he said it will be harder for an NHL team to accomplish the feat, although the Rucks desperately hope someone will.
“Yeah, it would be so special for not only us but our family, too,” Markus said. “We know the chances are pretty low, but if a team could pull it off, that’d be quite special, for sure. We’ve spent 18 years of our life together, every day pretty much. We watch every hockey game together, we play every hockey game together, every practice together. So we’ve kind of seen everything the same, and I think that helps us.”
Markus led the WHL this past season with 108 points in 68 games, just ahead of Liam’s 104 points, which included 45 goals. Desjardins said the twins, praised in many scouting reports for their hockey IQ, were also two of his best players defensively, deployed to kill penalties and protect leads.
Graduates of the Okanagan Hockey Academy in Penticton, about an hour’s drive north through wine country from Osoyoos, the Rucks turned 18 in February.
“As of now, I think we’ve still got the hope that a team can pull it off,” Liam said of playing together in the NHL. “I mean, it’s definitely not easy; you know that. But we’re still hoping it happens, and we’ll see how it all plays out. It would be a little tough getting separated at first.”
Several teams, including the Canucks, hold multiple picks between the middle of the first and second rounds. Sportsnet’s Jason Bukala ranks Liam 20th and Markus 30th among prospects for the two-day draft.
But there’s always a chance a team could view a monopoly of Rucks as significantly more valuable than either’s individual draft value. The St. Louis Blues’ trade Tuesday of Jordan Kyrou to the Washington Capitals gave them the 15th and 16th picks. The Ottawa Senators’ draft slots are 25th and 32nd. After choosing third, the Canucks hold selections at 24 and 33.
“I think any brother that gets to play with their brother at any level, it’s pretty special,” Liam said. “And now, getting this close to being at the top level, it’s unbelievable. I’ve seen what he’s gone through every step of the way, so it’s a pretty special bond you create.
“Honestly, we’ve been more fortunate off the ice. I think we have such a special bond. Obviously, on the ice, we are good together. But just away from the rink, we love spending time together. We get to compete with each other every day on the ice, in the gym, and that’s made us great. Getting a chance to go against each other, against someone that’s pretty much similar to you in every aspect of life, it’s been special in that way.”
The Rucks said they try not to think about getting separated in the NHL.
“It would be a little bit sad, for sure,” Markus said. “But it wouldn’t be anything that would affect us (as players); we’ll both be at our best for whatever team picks us. It would actually be a little bit harder off the ice than on the ice. You’d miss him, and miss competing with him every day. So I try not to think about it being our last year together or stuff like that. I just try to enjoy every day.”
The Sedins, of course, were able to spend every day of their careers together because former Canucks general manager Brian Burke went David Copperfield at the 1999 draft and managed to grab Daniel and Henrik second and third overall.
Those draft positions in relation to projections for the Rucks should temper expectations for Liam and Markus at the NHL level despite frequent comparisons to the Sedins based on their twinness.
“If someone’s going to compare us to Hall of Famers, it doesn’t bother me,” Markus said. “But I don’t think it’s very fair to them. I don’t think we deserve to be compared to them right now.”
Desjardins said: “I think it’s great that the Sedins set such a standard. It’s an incredible story, and it’s a great story for our game. But you can’t compare the Rucks to that. That’s not fair. When Hank and Danny came into the league, nobody was saying they were going to be Hall of Fame guys. That’s where the Rucks are at now. To ever get even close to the Sedins would be an incredible career.
“But they’ll write their own story, and I think it’s exciting. Nobody knows for sure where they’re going to go. At one time, Brian Burke felt pretty strongly about the Sedins, obviously, with where he picked them. But I don’t know if anybody else knew that for sure. But do I think the Rucks are special? For sure, they’re special.”