Especially with the Frozen Four headed for Denver next month, the increasingly tenuous relationship between NCAA programs and the NHL will continue to be a front-burner item of discussion among the hockey community.
Programs generally accept NHL-drafted players leaving school before they use up their eligibility, but the issue has been complicated in recent months by timing issues, most notably Kyle Okposo’s midseason departure from the University of Minnesota program and signing with the New York Islanders.
When the Devils played the Avalanche at the Pepsi Center on Saturday, their leading scorer was Zach Parise, the 23-year-old winger who signed with New Jersey after his sophomore season at the University of North Dakota.
Parise turned pro just in time for the NHL lockout and dark season, which meant he spent the entire 2004-05 season with Albany (N.Y.) of the American Hockey League with no chance to stick with or be recalled to the Devils.
So when Paul Stastny scored two goals and the University of Denver defeated the Fighting Sioux 4-1 in the 2005 national championship game in Columbus, Ohio, Parise — who might have made a difference — was in the minors.
“As far as development, I think that year in the American (Hockey) League was great,” Parise said in a telephone conversation with Minnesota and Colorado writers last week. “Just getting used to the travel, getting used to the 80-game schedule. It’s a big difference between the two games a week in college to playing four and five.
“The competition obviously was better. Had I known that there was going to be a lockout and that I didn’t have a chance to play in the NHL. . . . It was tough to watch North Dakota go all the way and lose in the finals, and it was tough to watch all the guys you played with and your friends, playing in the Frozen Four when you know you could be there. But I think career-wise, it probably was a good decision for me.”
Thanks to the NHL’s schedule format, which will be only slightly tweaked next season, Saturday was Parise’s first NHL game in Denver. Not only that, on Thursday he played his first NHL game in his home area, the Twin Cities, as the Devils defeated the Wild in a shootout. His father, J.P., played the majority of his 890 NHL games for the Minnesota North Stars.
Before attending North Dakota — a decision that didn’t go over well in his native state — Zach attended the renowned Shattuck-St. Mary’s prep school in Faribault, Minn. He left just as Sidney Crosby arrived to play one season at the school.
But it’s not as if it hasn’t worked out for Parise, who signed a four-year, $12.5 million contract last July. He went into Saturday’s game in Denver with 30 goals and 60 points, far and away the best totals on the Devils’ roster.
“The most important thing, and the way the Devils have always been, is it’s all about winning here,” Parise said. “That’s the most enjoyable part.”
The Boy Scout.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was the keynote speaker Tuesday at the 32nd Sports Breakfast, a fundraiser for the Denver Area Council of the Boy Scouts of America at the Pepsi Center.
Following a parade of other area college and pro coaches and executives to the podium — including Nuggets coach George Karl, who showed considerable class by attending after arriving back in town only a few hours earlier from San Antonio — Bettman did a good job.
He talked of receiving direction while being a Cub Scout as a member of a single-parent household in the New York City borough of Queens, and related hockey’s culture and traditions to the qualities embodied in scouting.
He scored points with the members of the business community listening on the packed Pepsi Center floor — both with his brevity and his message.
Who can you hit?
This has been an ongoing NHL issue for years, and I’ve talked about it previously — as so many have.
But it seems to be getting more farcical each season: It’s the notion that if you deliver a hit on a star, even if it’s clean, you better brace yourself for payback.
And if the star is injured, again even if the hit is clean, all bets are off.
The way it’s going, the NHL might as well just codify this. In line with the cap era and prioritizing players, it should set a salary benchmark each season for players who are not supposed to be hit with anything other than brushing checks.
The examples of this line of thinking are legion and displayed on a nightly basis in the NHL, including in Denver.
SPOTLIGHT ON . . .
Penguins C Evgeni Malkin
As the Avalanche has discovered, the saving grace during injury sieges can be that others — in some cases, surprisingly — step into the breach and mature because of the added responsibility.
The highest-profile example of that this season is Malkin, the Penguins’ second-year center who has been remarkable in the wake of Sidney Crosby’s ankle problem.
Considering he won the Calder Trophy last season as the NHL’s rookie of the year, this isn’t a case of Malkin coming out of nowhere and shocking the world.
It’s a matter of degree.
Malkin has 16 goals and 25 assists for 41 points in only 25 games since Crosby first went out of the lineup with the high ankle sprain he suffered Jan. 18.
After giving it a try for three games, Crosby is expected to be out of the lineup again for about a week.
But the way Malkin has played, the Penguins haven’t suffered nearly as much as was projected. In fact, from Jan. 19 on, the Penguins are 14-7-4 heading into their NBC home game today against the Philadelphia Flyers and are in the hunt for the Atlantic Division lead and the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed.
Malkin is living with veteran defenseman Sergei Gonchar and his family, and prefers to speak Russian in interviews, including at the All-Star Game in Atlanta last month, when Russian journalists translated his answers for other writers. Gonchar recently was on an NHL-arranged conference call with Malkin, and a reporter asked if it was true that Malkin understood English far better than he can speak it.
Malkin jumped in and took that one himself.
“Yes,” he said.
