Picking the Player, Not the Team

Choosing college or junior hockey is up to the players, not NHL teams

June 14, 2007

By Elliot Olshansky

CSTV.com

 



 ELLIOT OLSHANSKY

Elliot is CSTV.com's hockey editor and runs his Rink Rat hockey blog on CSTV.com.
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Tell Ferris State head coach Bob Daniels that you're curious about the situation involving recruited forward Pat Maroon, and the response you'll get is, "I am, too."

 

The St. Louis native, ranked 208th among North American skaters by the NHL's Central Scouting Service, is committed to the Bulldogs for the 2007-08 season, but as the draft approaches, it's unsure whether he will ever arrive in Big Rapids.

 


 

 

The 6-foot-4 left wing has been in conversation with London Knights general manager Mark Hunter about continuing his development in the OHL instead of in college, and is intrigued by the possibility of playing for the Knights, who recently signed Cornell forward Tony Romano, and also won the recruiting battle last year for Patrick Kane against college programs that included Boston University and Michigan.

 

For his part, Daniels isn't shy about what he thinks is best for Maroon's development.

 

"Obviously, I'd like to have Pat here," Daniels said. "I think we would do a very good job of developing him. I think he does have potential. If developed, he can play at a high level of professional hockey. I think that between his size and his skill level in terms of his hands, it makes him, certainly, a prospect at a higher level. But I think there's some developmental time there that I think we can provide here."

 

However, the opinion that Maroon appears most interested in is that of the NHL team that selects him in next weekend's NHL Entry Draft. In an interview with the London Free Press, Maroon said, "It all depends if I get drafted and what team drafts me and if that team tells me to go to the OHL or college."

 

In reporting on the issue, Morris Della Costa of the Free Press wrote, "there probably aren't a lot of NHL teams that wouldn't recommend he play in the OHL."

 

However, NHL teams are often wary of directing a player toward one avenue of development as opposed to another, preferring to make sure the player has all the information, then allow him to choose for himself.

 

"That's their life and their career," said Jarmo Kekalainen, assistant general manager and director of amateur scouting for the St. Louis Blues. "They've got to make their decisions. Obviously, if they want our advice, we want to be part of the discussion and giving them advice, because we have a lot of experience in these things, and that, again, would depend on the individual."

 

Part of that, of course, is that each individual player has different options when he's drafted by an NHL team.

 

Atlanta Thrashers general manager Don Waddell said he would have a hard time advising a kid on whether they should play junior or college.

 

"I'm a big believer in making plusses and minuses," Waddell said. "Here's the plusses of going to college hockey, and here's the minuses of going to college. Here's the plusses of going to junior hockey; here's the minuses."

 

Los Angeles Kings general manager Dean Lombardi favors a similar approach. The Kings have seen three draftees opt for major junior over college since Lombardi took over in the spring of 2006 - including former Yale forward David Meckler, who now plays for the Knights - but as Lombardi said in a January article on CSTV.com, the players themselves were the forces behind those decisions, which is just as the Kings want it.

 

"Even if a player does not make his own decision," Lombardi said in January, "he has to feel, `OK, I'm going this route, here's the pros and cons.' If he doesn't, and he's struggling, or there's a bump in the road, his inclination a lot of times, as a human being, is, `I knew I should have went there! Why'd you tell me to go that route?' I've seen that before, so that's why it's important that with college, junior, whatever, all we do is, `Here's the pros and cons, make your call, we'll support you and stick with it.'"

 

Part of that is a sense of when a player might reach the NHL.

 

"You have to know if you're talking about a first-round candidate that would be ready to play within a couple of years, or a sixth-round candidate that, if he's ever going to play, is four years away," said Pittsburgh Penguins assistant general manager Chuck Fletcher. "If a kid's one year away from playing in the NHL, then I guess it doesn't matter. If a kid's five years away, then obviously, college would be a much better route."

 

Those sentiments are echoed in Atlanta.

 

"You try to make the best rational decision," Waddell said, "and you also have to face reality. `How quickly am I going to play in the National Hockey League?' If you're just talking, `I'm going to play one more year and then go,' your option might be a lot greater than if you're two or three years away."

 

Ranked in the 200s, Maroon appears to fall squarely in the latter category, but no matter what he chooses, he'll need to make a full commitment.

 

"At the end of the day, he's got to be fully committed to doing it," Daniels said. "There's going to be good days and bad days like anywhere, and he's got to be fully committed. I don't a guy that's here, then all of a sudden, partway through, says, `Well, maybe I'll go there.' It's either you're here, you're fully on board and immersed into our program, or the other option might be the one for him. I don't know. I know we've got a pretty good track record here of developing the players that come here."

 

And, while that track record - which now includes a name on the Stanley Cup in former Bulldog Chris Kunitz of the Anaheim Ducks - would speak well of Ferris State in any evaluation of Maroon's options, Daniels doubts that an NHL team is going to tip the scales one way or the other.

 

"I don't know if they're going to want to get in the middle of this," Daniels said. "Personally, I don't see where they're going to benefit from getting in the middle of it, but I can tell you that the opportunity to develop here, with what his needs are, I think that this is his only real option."

 

As for other players with options, they'll need to make those decisions for themselves.