The Avalanche believed Ryan Stoa was a better prospect than Paul Stastny.
Colorado took Stoa with the 34th overall pick in the 2005 NHL draft, then claimed Stastny 10 slots later.
That’s a scary thought – for the University of Minnesota hockey program.
On Sunday, Stoa was disconsolate, sitting in the corner stall in a Pepsi Center dressing room and showing no sign of making a move anytime soon.
“This is shocking,” the Gophers’ sophomore center said. “We were the best team in the country all year, on paper, and we played like it for half the year and something happened. Then we started to get it back, but when you let it go to overtime, anyone can win.”
The Gophers, with a roster that included 14 NHL draft choices, had just lost 3-2 in overtime to North Dakota in the NCAA West Regional championship game. The speculation was beginning about which Minnesota underclassmen will sign with the NHL teams that previously claimed their rights in what usually is a pick-and-wait process involving initial draft eligibility at roughly age 18.
Depending on your perspective, the NHL teams and player agents can seem to be either exploitative predators or patient future employers and representatives merely saying: When you’re ready …
The truth usually is somewhere in the gray area between the two extremes.
Three Gophers – Stoa, 19, freshman center Mike Carman, 18, and junior defenseman Derek Peltier, 22 – are Avalanche draft choices. And, yes, they and a lot of other members of recent draft crops have noticed Stastny’s remarkable rookie season.
When Stastny and his Hall of Fame father, Peter, indicated he was ready to turn pro and he signed with the Avalanche after his sophomore season at the University of Denver, the safe assumption was that he would spend this season with the Avalanche’s AHL affiliate, the Albany River Rats. I was shaking my head, believing he would have been far better off to stay one more season with the Pioneers before signing.
Stastny has proved me and a lot of others wrong. He was ready.
“I don’t know if it affects my decision at all – two different players, two different styles,” said Stoa, a 6-foot-3, 217-pound Twin Cities native. “But he’s definitely having a great year. He’s a great player. I played against him last year, and I couldn’t take the puck away from him and he was in on all the goals.”
Stoa said he was “excited when I found out the regional was (at the Pepsi Center). Denver’s a nice city. Whenever it happens, I’ll be excited to be here and play here, if I get the opportunity.”
He said the Avalanche has been in touch only minimally, and he appreciates that. “They’re good about just letting you be and playing on the team you’re with now,” he said. “If the time comes, so be it. I guess this is up to me, but they’d have to want me to leave, too. They’d have to say something, and then I’d have to make my decision off that. I’m happy (in college). Losing stinks, but these are brothers to me and it’s a great place to play.”
Colorado is set to sign Michigan center T.J. Hensick, another 2005 pick who completed his eligibility when the Wolverines lost to North Dakota in the regional semifinals. That’s part of the bigger picture, too. And despite Stastny’s success, I’m going to stick with the view that both the Avalanche and Stoa would be better off if he stays at least one more year with the Gophers.
“My feeling would be that unless Ryan really wants to come out, our intention is to have him stay in school and keep developing,” Avalanche general manager Francois Giguere said Monday. “You’re talking about a guy who’s playing on one of the best teams in the nation in a great program. He’s playing on a top line and he’s getting good minutes, so everything is there for him to develop properly.”
Avalanche director of player development Craig Billington called Stoa “a wonderful person. As a player, I think he’s maturing and developing. We’ve been closely monitoring him now for two years, and I think he’s made great strides.”
But what if Stoa someday turns out to be in the same class with Stastny, and not just in the same draft? That intriguing possibility is another reason the key issue in the Avalanche’s late-season run isn’t whether Colorado, with Stastny getting into rookie-of-the-year contention, makes the playoffs. It’s whether the surge and the in-progress restocking are part of a recovery for the franchise that set lofty standards in the pre-cap era – lofty, as in holding the Stanley Cup overhead or pronouncing the season less than successful.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
