After a full four-season career at the University of Maine, Ben Guite spent six seasons and part of a seventh in hockey’s minor leagues, even starting out with a rookie pro year playing in that hockey hotbed – Tallahassee, Fla. – in the East Coast Hockey League.
That’s roughly on a par with the Colorado Eagles’ and Rocky Mountain Rage’s Central League, so the fact Guite seems to have proven himself capable of playing in the NHL after his midseason call-up to the Avalanche might be cited as encouragement in the Broomfield and Loveland locker rooms.
He is 28, and that’s ancient for an NHL rookie.
“This is my chance,” he said Sunday. “It comes a little later than for most guys, but I’m trying to take it and run with it.”
In 26 games with the Avs in two stints, Guite has a goal and seven assists, not the sort of numbers that could make him feel secure enough to buy a home in Cherry Hills Village – or even sign a long-term lease on an apartment in Centennial. But at long last, he has been given an NHL shot and has shown himself to be a gritty and versatile winger. He set up Ian Laperriere’s goal in the Avalanche’s 3-2 overtime loss to Minnesota on Sunday and played nearly 13 minutes, including much of Colorado’s penalty-killing time.
“He’s playing well,” said Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville, whose team plays Calgary on Wednesday at the Pepsi Center in a game the Avs pretty much have to win in regulation or have even their longshot playoff hopes written off completely. “He’s giving us energy on the penalty kill, he’s got some strength in the puck area and he’s got some edge, a little bite to his game.”
The Montreal native said he understands his “time on the ice is for some specific situations, for penalty kill and some faceoffs. You get used to that as a fourth- line group, that sometimes you skip shifts. But every time I’m on the ice, I try to make the best of it. It’s almost like when you have little ice time, you try and make the most of it and if you have an abundance of ice time, sometimes you get a little lackadaisical.”
With Marek Svatos out for the past five games with a groin injury, that has helped open a spot for Guite, but he is playing well enough to perhaps be in position to remain in the lineup after Svatos returns.
Guite had 47 goals for Maine in a solid, but not spectacular, collegiate career.
“My dad played hockey, and he had a chance to go to college and he didn’t grab it,” Guite said. “He kind of regretted it, and he really wanted me to do it. He met a longtime acquaintance who was a junior coach in Albany (N.Y.), and his son had gone to Maine, so he had a foot in the door at Maine and pushed really hard for me to go there. They finally caved in and took me in, and I had four great years there.”
After he left Maine in 2000, he played one season at Tallahassee, then the next five in the AHL – with Bridgeport, Cincinnati and Providence. The Avs signed him as a free agent last summer, in a move that seemed designed to add organizational depth, not a body on the NHL roster. He was back in the AHL this season, with Albany, but was called up for the first time in early January. After going down for a brief stint during the NHL all-star break, he was recalled on Jan. 26 and has played well since.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
