Four years ago, Milan Hejduk was halfway through a 50-goal season that would end with him winning the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy as the NHL’s leading goal scorer. The Avalanche’s Czech right wing, then 26, seemed ticketed to be one of the league’s top goal-scorers for years to come.
So what happened?
After the Avalanche practice Thursday, Hejduk and teammate Marek Svatos – it’s always nice to see a Czech and a Slovak getting along – stayed out for about a half-hour longer than anyone else, lining up in the slot and shooting at the virtually impregnable plastic “Shooter Tutor” barrier in the net.
And then Hejduk talked about his frustration over not being more productive over the past three seasons. He regressed to 35 goals in 2003-04 then 24 in 2005-06, and he’s on the same pace this season, with 12 going into tonight’s meeting with the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Pepsi Center.
The departure of Peter Forsberg, who had a league-high 77 assists and won the Hart Trophy in Hejduk’s 50-goal season, certainly hasn’t helped. But this also has raised the question whether Hej- duk’s ability to maneuver and get off shots in confined spaces was more relatively valuable in the “old” NHL, where obstruction, clutching and grabbing was the unholy trifecta.
“You can’t expect a trophy every year,” Hejduk said, “but I want to be at least close to that number every year. I’m not. That’s frustrating. It’s not as much fun.”
Why hasn’t the new game opened up the ice for him?
Hejduk thought for what seemed an eternity.
“I don’t know what that is,” he finally said. “I’m thinking I’m still getting the chances, but they’re just not going in. Or maybe the shots I’m getting now are not those 100 percent chances. I don’t know.”
Hejduk is on a line with Paul Stastny and Andrew Brunette.
Avalanche coach Joel Quenne- ville on Thursday said Colorado “is looking for more production” from Hejduk.
“I have to admit the quality and quantity of his scoring chances is probably at the level that he had that year,” Quenneville said. “I didn’t see him regularly (then), but certainly he’s getting chances and high-quality ones. The finish probably isn’t to his or our liking right now.
“But that line (Monday) generated a lot at Nashville, we’re expecting it to produce. I don’t care who’s going to be the finisher on the line. But he might be the more likely guy to be the finish guy, so we’re expecting more production from him the last part of the season.”
When Hejduk joined the Avalanche in 1998, a few months after being a fourth-liner on the Czech Republic’s Olympic gold medal team at Nagano, English was a complete mystery to him. More than eight years later, he is second in seniority on the Avalanche, behind only Joe Sakic, is married, and has twin sons (Marek and David) who turned 3 on Wednesday.
“I don’t feel old, but old-er for sure,” he said. “Playing here has been a huge part of my life. I’ve spent many years here. I like it here, it’s a lot of fun living here, and I’m happy.”
He said he and his wife, Zlatuse, “speak Czech at home now, so the twins speak better Czech now than English. But they’re starting to go to a preschool every day from 8 to 12, and they should pick up English – and definitely speak it better than us. We haven’t decided yet whether when I’m done with hockey, we’ll stay here or go back home. Before, we thought we were going to go back, but now that we’ve spent more time here, more years, we have decided we like it here so much, we might stay here. It’s going to be a really tough decision.”
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
