Amanda Kessel’s rise from the couch and back to the ice

For someone who has won collegiate national titles and a silver medal at the Olympics, Amanda Kessel has seen some pretty dark days over the last year and a half.

“I don’t think anyone knows what that’s like, unless you’ve had a concussion,” Kessel told me by phone. “It’s very depressing. No one really understands, they can’t see anything.”

To understand what she’s been through, you have to go back to September of 2014, when she was forced to stop playing hockey and withdraw from the University of Minnesota. Just a year earlier she had won the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Award as the nation’s top women’s college hockey player.

But Kessel sustained a concussion while training with Team USA before the 2014 Olympics. While she played in the games in Sochi, afterwards her condition never improved. It got so bad that she could no longer play the game she loved.

“(It was) by far the toughest two years of my life.”

Kessel had seen more doctors than she could count, but the symptoms would just not subside. Her activity was minimal, her involvement in hockey even less.

“I honestly didn’t even pay attention to hockey too much, because it was just too hard on me,” she explained.

As hard as it was, the fighter in Kessel never backed down. Even facing what she assumed to be the inevitable, she never gave up hope that she could return.

“In the back of my head I always knew I still want to play hockey but I was unsure I would.”

But in August of 2015, things turned around thanks to Kessel’s willingness to see yet another specialist. Dr. Michael Collins, from the University of Pittsburgh, specializes in sports related concussions. His idea for treatment was completely different. Instead of sitting back and being, what Kessel called a “couch potato,” he opted for a more aggressive approach which called for “pushing back” against the symptoms instead of succumbing to them.

“He told me, ‘You’re OK. You’re gonna get healthy and you’re going to play hockey again,’” Kessel said. “And I think that I needed that.”

The treatment worked. According to Kessel, within a month she started to feel better. She started going to school and feeling more normal than she had in a long time and skating on her own. All the while, Kessel’s father was in contact with Gopher women’s hockey coach Brad Frost to let him know about the new treatment and the success she had been having with it.

Amanda Kessel takes in her surroundings in her first game back in maroon and gold on Friday, Feb 5. (Photo by Nick Wosika)

She continued to ramp up her activity. In December she began skating with the team while her coach made sure to keep her safe.

“That first week or two we had her in a red (non-contact) jersey,” Frost recalls of Kessel’s return to the ice. “We just wanted her to work her way back the best she could and see where it went from there.”

Where it went was to a place Kessel could hardly have imagined it going just a few months earlier. In January the program announced Kessel would rejoin the team for its final 16 games. It was biggest and most exciting victory of her young and promising career.

“I was a completely different person,” Kessel recalls. “Hockey and my competitiveness was a big part of who I was. So I didn’t really feel like myself for the past two years and to get that back it was a huge part of me.”

Amanda Kessel became a Gopher again last Friday night against rival North Dakota. It was her first collegiate hockey game in more than two years. Naturally the moment she set foot on the ice for the first time, was one she’ll not soon forget.

“It put a huge smile on my face,” Kessel said. “I was excited. In shock, but excited. The fans were unbelievable with their support. It was loud in there.”

She had two assists in her debut but admits it’s going to take some time before she feels completely normal on the ice again.

“It’s just that game shape. Different plays and how they develop and finding your sweet spot. Those things take a little time to get back.”

However, this time she has a plan for getting those things back. Instead of just having hope that one day she’ll wake up and all will be better, this time she can practice and work at it — getting her slowly back to the player she was. The player that so many believed to be one of the greatest that the game had seen in a long time.

Kessel has the rest of this season with the Gophers and then her shortened college career is done. She hopes to once again play in the next Olympics in 2018 and maybe even try her hand at women’s professional hockey. Still there is a part of her that feels cheated.

Kessel lost two years of a college career that had her on track to be one of the best in school history. But any feelings of bitterness have now faded, replaced by the elation of getting hockey back and making her whole again.

“It was more tough when I wasn’t playing,” Kessel said. “Now that I am back I am just grateful. Even with only 12 or 14 games left, I am just grateful that I get to have the opportunity to be here.”

The post Schwartz: Fighting back appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Put down your pitchforks please

If I received one tweet this week about firing Wild head coach Mike Yeo, I received a thousand. It’s become the battle cry of Wild fans who are understandably upset about the team’s recent slump. I can assure two things, folks: 1) No one is more upset about this slump than Mike Yeo and 2) If you run him out of town, I promise we’ll all regret it.

Yeo is a good, smart coach. He knows the game and knows how to manage the players who are playing it. However, he is not holding a controller that has the ability to control the actions of his players. He is not a puppet master nor does he possess the ability to control human minds or actions. My point is that he can’t go out and shoot and score for players, he can only tell them HOW to do it.

Firing Mike Yeo right now, makes as much sense as throwing away the steering wheel to a car that has no wheels. While both drive the car, they are at the will of the things that make it move.

No, Mike Yeo is not perfect. He’s not Scotty Bowman or Herb Brooks — but there are so many things that are not his fault or doing that even those legendary names would have trouble as well.

Let’s start with a roster that is — by their own admission — very much underperforming. Jason Pominville has five goals this season. That puts him on track for a whopping eight for the season which is by far his lowest goal total for his career and at $5.6 million a year earning him $700,000 per lamp lighter.

Right now Pominville has only one more goal than the first season he joined the Wild — when he only played in 10 games. Why this slump is happening is anyone’s guess. Is it the downslide of his career? Or is he just putting too much pressure on himself? We know this: he’s taken the 3third most shots on the team, so it’s not for a lack of trying.

Mikael Granlund’s four goals this year puts him behind four defensemen and a fourth liner in terms of goal production. Granlund has not turned into the prolific goal scorer this team has hoped, but this goal total is even low for him. At this pace he’ll finish with 6 goals — and getting $500,000 per. You don’t have to be a hedge fund manager to realize that is a lousy return on investment.

Then there is everyone’s favorite punching bag, Thomas Vanek, whose numbers aren’t bad, but don’t really tell the whole story. While he’s got 14 goals this season, he’s only put three in the net over the last month. At $6.5 million, one would expect his scoring to be a bit more reliable.

Another place to put the blame in all this would be Chuck Fletcher. Don’t get me wrong, Chuck has made some fantastic moves over the years. I have written about them at length for this magazine. But he has six players on his roster with no move clauses in their contracts which means he can’t trade them or send them to the minors without their approval.

That significantly minimizes the number of dance partners you can have in the trade game. To give you an idea of how big that number is; the two conference leading teams both have less NMC contract players on their roster. The Washington Capitals are the league’s best team and they have only three NMCs on their roster. The Western Conference leading Blackhawks have five. So even if the Wild did want to make a big splash to start the second half their lack of cap space and lack of players who can be moved and/or taken off the books is minimal. That’s a bad combination which has nothing to do with the head coach.

Yes the power play and penalty kill have been lousy and maybe it’s time for Mike to use some different line combinations. But other than that and/or throwing another epic fit on the ice, there isn’t really a whole lot he can do. The game of hockey isn’t like other sports. You don’t execute a book of plays, or get a scouting report on the other team’s starting pitcher. You get on the ice and you try to put the puck in the net any way that you can and, while the coach can control which players are paired together and who they are paired against, he CANNOT make them play the game better.

It happens with skill, practice and possibly most importantly, the ability to relax and let the game come to you. I believe this is a talented roster of players who have and can make plays and right now every one of them is thinking too much about it.

That is why wins come in bunches. Every score and every win relaxes you more allowing guys to make the plays. It’s also why losses come in groups as well. The less those good plays pay off and the more the losses pile up, the more guys think about it and tighten up — making it harder to do the right things.

Some guys are great under pressure — right now the Wild are not. But firing a head coach isn’t going to change that. All it does it signal that the season is done and I hope that is not the feeling over in St. Paul.

The post Schwartz: Stop calling for Yeo’s head appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Not even diabetes can slow latest Blaine star’s rise to the top

It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday afternoon at Fogerty Arena in Blaine. A hulking figure steps onto the ice. He is 6-foot-5, but in the three strides it takes him to get over the bench, you see very little of the awkwardness that you might expect.

This is not a basketball player on skates. It’s the next great star to come out of Blaine, Riley Tufte.

When you see him, you do a double take. He wears jersey number 27, given to him as a freshman by former head coach Dave Aus who thought he bared a striking resemblance to another player he once coached.

He has blonde hair and a baby face that almost seems out of a place on a monster of his size. He is Nick Bjugstad 2.0 and he is not upset about that. Because like Nick, Riley also hopes of being in the NHL someday and he has a very good chance.

In fact the two actually talk and text regularly. Nick is friends with Riley’s older brother and has been instrumental in guiding him through a high school career that mirrors his. Sometimes Riley even returns the favor – like giving Bjugstad guff for a recent fight that left him bloody.

Riley is skilled. He doesn’t move like a man who is 6-foot-5. He glides with the ease of Zach Parise, stick handles as smoothly as Patrick Kane but with the frame of John Scott. He is a walking (and skating) oxymoron. Like Nick Bjugstad he shouldn’t be able to do the things he does at his size, but he doesn’t go by the script.

The biggest difference between Nick and Riley comes in their temperament. Riley is polite and kind in interviews, but when you put him on the ice?

“He’s got a good little mean streak in him,” says Blaine coach Chris Carroll.

Although by talking to him you wouldn’t know it.

There is also one more – rather large—difference. Riley has type one diabetes, which he was diagnosed with at 11-years old.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me to be honest,” Tufte said. “I didn’t know how diabetes worked and I didn’t know if I could play hockey.”

Not only has he played, he has excelled. Tufte’s 26 goals through 16 games are good for fourth in the state and he is expected to be the highest Minnesotan drafted in June’s National Hockey League draft.

He also has a leg up on many other kids his age when it comes to taking care of their body. While most high school aged kids could care very little about what they are putting into their body, Riley has to know.

He makes sure to eat one hour before a game and sometimes during the game and he drinks Gatorade throughout the game as well. Lessons like these aren’t usually learned until a player gets to college, or even the professional level, and has the benefit of a nutritionist. For Riley it’s just one more aspect of who he is that puts him above the rest.

But what is it about the Blaine/Spring Lake Park area that keeps churning out hockey stars? Nick Bjugstad, David Backes, Matt Hendricks, Brandon Bochenski just to name a few have all played games at Fogerty Arena and have gone on to the highest level of hockey.

Blaine is not the first place when you think of elite hockey talent but a quick glance at the names above might suggest differently. Carroll says it’s because of the way the community supports the program. Like many cities kids grow up playing together at a young age and stay together as they rise through the ranks.

They end up feeling a loyalty to the programs as well which is why, when a star talent like Tufte has a chance to go play in the Unites States Hockey League, he passes — deciding to instead finish out his senior season as a Bengal.

Let’s go back to Fogerty Arena on that same Monday afternoon. Practice is underway and the team is doing breakout drills. Tufte is hard to miss, because he is a men amongst boys and because his intensity is palpable. He is yelling – not just at his teammates to work hard – but also at himself, when a shot goes wide or a pass is not right on the mark.

And maybe that is the real reason Tufte is destined to be such a star, because he won’t let himself off the hook, ever. In the end, that is the intangible quality that separates a good player from the star; the guys we don’t hear of past high school from the Bjugstad’s, the Backes’ and the Hendricks’. It’s the drive to know you’re the best and the desire to stay the best no matter what level you’re playing at.

Riley Tufte seems to exhibit that from high above his competition as this giant young man hopes to continue is rise to stardom.

The post Schwartz: Tufte clears huge hurdle appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

For alumni game, forget the stands, give me a seat behind the bench

Recently, for my day job at KARE 11, I had a chance to sit down and chat with a few former Minnesota North Stars. We did a fun bit about how well the former teammates know each other and I gave them a little quiz — I know, real hard hitting journalism!

After talking with the four players (Tom Younghans, Reed Larson, Jack Carlson and Brad Maxwell), I was left with cramps from laughing so hard and the stark realization that, as excited as I am about the Stadium Series game between the Wild and the Blackhawks, I might be even more excited about the North Stars playing the Blackhawks.

But it’s not really the hockey that I am looking forward to most. It’s the hope that I can get close enough to the bench to hear some of the conversations. In fact, I am not sure of the Wild’s ticket strategy but I would pay triple the ticket price if I could just have a seat behind the benches of the old timers. One that has an obstructed view of the ice but that provides me unobstructed audio from the bench. I am telling you folks, that is where the real entertainment is going to be.

I want to hear stories. Forget the hockey, I can see guys hack around and smile ear to ear and my old weekly pick-up game. I want the memories — and you will too.

I want to hear from Lou Nanne and Brad Maxwell about the trade that brought him from New York in 1987 — about how Nanne was able to win him back in a card game (according to Maxwell). A story which made me openly skeptical when I heard about it.

“No foolin!”, Maxwell told me that afternoon.

I know it’s been nearly 30 years, but I’d give anything to hear Nanne recount how that went with then New York Genera Manager Phil Esposito. How did it come about? What was the game? What were the stakes? And maybe most importantly, what was that moment like when he won his prize?

I also want to hear the off-season stories. It’s hard to imagine but as late as the 1980’s some professional hockey players still had to get off-season jobs. Jack Carlson told me that one year he dug graves just to keep a salary coming in. Now, Carlson admits he didn’t get the big bucks of an early top round pick but he couldn’t have been the only one having to make ends meet outside of the season.

Forget dryland training and morning skates, when the season was over guys had to pay the bills. Then when they went back they had an even larger fanbase of people they just spent months working with. I mean honestly, just imagine a scene where Zach Parise is bagging groceries or Nate Prosser is caddying at a golf course so that they can keep a steady income. It just goes to show just how much salaries have gone up in such a short period of time.

But there might not be any stories that I am looking forward to more than the ones of camaraderie between teammates. Just like today, these guys spent their lives together. They were friends and family, they knew each other’s family. They played seasons and, sometimes if there were lucky, post seasons together.

“Nothing binds you together quite like a Stanley Cup run,” Jack Carlson told me with a huge ear to ear grin, that seems to be permanently affixed to his hulking frame.

His team made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1981 before losing to the New York Islanders who won their second of 4 straight. Still Carlson wears a big championship ring on his hand that he and his teammates bought for themselves for winning the Western Conference that year because, as he told me, you don’t get rings if you didn’t win the title.

I want to hear the stories of the road trips, the ups and downs, the team chemistry, the rivalries and the pranks (some of which I heard from Reed Larson and Tom Younghans, but cannot recount for obvious reasons).

I asked all the players if the rivalry with the Blackhawks was still there and they emphatically answered, “Yes.” But don’t expect there to be any fights, cause the guys are over doing that now and admit that they’ll have enough trouble skating around the ice and getting their wind without trying to drop the gloves.  Plus, most of us just want to watch the game — although I’ll admit I wouldn’t mind seeing Big Jack Carlson throw his weight around a bit.

Sure the game may have changed over the years but the guys who play it haven’t. It’s still a game of deep feelings, camaraderie and love for the sport.

But the one game that might be most exciting Stadium Series weekend, might just be the one that’s a repeat of a game played 30 years earlier.

The post Schwartz: It’s the stories that matter appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The other side of the great age debate

Let me start this column by stating that I don’t care who or whom from the Big Ten hockey conference proposed this new legislation that would put age restrictions on college hockey players. But I do think that it has the potential to take away something that college hockey seems to do so much better than other college sports; the ability to have parity.

Without it, the biggest and most prominent schools will get the best kids and the rest will settle. There will be very few Cinderella story victories. The Minnesota Golden Gophers, Boston University Terriers and the North Dakota Fighting Hawks of the world will win every national championship for the next decade. Sure, the smaller teams will get the occasional blue chip recruit, but they won’t be able to do it alone.

I have heard both sides of the argument. From the coaches who are proposing this, which Dan Myers at College Hockey News did a great job of outlining in his interview with Minnesota coach Don Lucia, and from those who oppose it.

The coaches of the Big Ten have a legitimate concern with the wide age range between true freshman (18) and freshman enrolling after a junior career. At 18 you’ve barely learned how to grow a beard. By the time you’re 21 you’re shaving twice a day, you’re body is fully matured and you could really do some serious damage to an 18-year old punk straight out of high school.

But some players are those who aren’t physically ready can be red-shirted or play juniors for a year. They will lose no eligibility and the extra time will allow them to grow physically and mentally.

But the potential damage to smaller programs of the college hockey landscape is a real threat. In Minnesota, probably 90 percent of kids who grow up with a stick in their hand want to be a Gopher someday. At a smaller school they often get the student athletes that haven’t matured enough as high schoolers to catch the eye of the bigger schools. So those players go to juniors, the play hockey everyday against top competition and they excel. Then they earn a college scholarship and get to live a wonderful dream of being a collegiate hockey player at the age of 21.

Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore prefers the status quo when it comes to freshman age rules. (Bemidji State University Athletics photo)

No one knows better than Tom Serratore at Bemidji State. His roster is full of players that started their college career a little later. Like Matt Read, who played for the Beavers from 2007-2011

“He needed junior hockey, he needed ages 18,19 and 20 to grow.” Serratore says of Read. “There’s a lot of kids that do, he is just a prime example.”

Read, now in his fifth year with the Philadelphia Flyers, agrees.

“For individuals like me, I don’t think I would be in the position I am in today if I had to go to school a year earlier or was told I could only play three years of college hockey,” Read told me by phone from Philadelphia. “Some guys are ready to go at 18 and others need that time to grow a little bigger and get a little stronger. “

But the draw of older kids isn’t just about talent on the ice. Coaches who oppose of the age limitation contend that kids who have completed a junior hockey career are just more mature to handle the rigors of the college game.

“The reason they are less risk is that they are ready for the extreme challenges of college hockey,” Serratore says. “Those challenges include being successful academically, fighting for playing time, being away from home and overcoming adverse situations because they have already been through them”

Serratore and other “mid-major” coaches, as he refers to himself, know that they don’t often get the top line talent right out of high school. With the new legislation some of his freshman would only play 3 years — if at all. Which could severely limit some programs chance at competing on a yearly basis.

“A lot of people don’t want three-year players,” Serratore says. “Recruiting is hard enough and the first two years are typically transitional for incoming players. I don’t know if I’d want to roll the dice on a kid for three years, I’d rather have him for four years. So this legislation could shrink an already small recruiting pool.”

“Our game is strong right now,” Serratore went on to say. “Why would we want to hurt our game when 30 percent of the National Hockey League is comprised of college hockey players.”

Recruiting and college sports is a vicious and often cut throat business. The strongest survive and the weakest fail. But in other sports the playing field is a little more even. In football, baseball and basketball there is no development system that feeds into college hockey.

So, for the most part, everyone recruits from the same batch of kids at the same time. The best schools with the best reputation get the best players. Ignoring the fact that hockey is different is just not fair to schools. Junior hockey, while not for everyone, is a great opportunity for some athletes to improve at their game, grow up both on and off the ice and earn a college scholarship.

I never had the chance to play collegiate hockey — I could have kept playing until I was 31 and that wouldn’t have mattered. But do we really want to limit the amount of kids who actually have a chance to play from doing so?

Let’s not forget that collegiate sports are a game. Winning counts but so does the experience of being on a team, setting and reaching goals, and learning how to count on and work with the person next to you no matter what. Collegiate sports also allow some kids to go to college, when they otherwise would not have had the money to do so thanks to an athletic scholarship.

So while the motives of the Big Ten may not be to exclude some from playing this great game at the collegiate level, it very much has the potential to do so. And the last thing that anyone wants is to not continue to grow the game we love.

The post Schwartz: Protecting Parity appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Darwtiz finds balance with hockey and family

Former Gopher and Olympian Natalie Darwitz is, and always has been, a winner. Sometimes it can take longer to ascend to the top, but inevitably in her charmed hockey career Darwitz always makes there.

She’s won two national titles with the Gophers and two silver medals at the Olympics as a player and she made it to the state tournament as a coach at Lakeville South last season. She even dabbled as a broadcaster for NBC during the 2014 Winter Olympics — and was well thought of by her peers.

Now Darwitz has a new challenge, as the head hockey coach at Hamline University.

“I want to help grow women’s hockey,” Darwtiz told me by phone. “My goal is to continue to grow the game any way possible.”

Even by Twitter, which is how this foray into coaching began.

“I knew something was up when the Athletic Director at Hamline (Jason Verdugo) followed me on Twitter,” Darwitz said with a giggle.

A follow up phone call led to a lunch, which led to her hire and the chance to become an ambassador for the game that she loves. With the job in hand she immediately realized the magnitude of the task ahead of her.

Simply getting the word out about Division III hockey would be a job in itself. But it’s a labor of love. Darwitz hopes to be able to play games at different places around the state just to try and reach players who might not see Division III women’s college hockey as an option.

“There are a lot of good players that could step in right now and make an impact on a D-III team,” Darwitz says. “And they think, ‘Ummm, I am just going to go into medicine and be a regular student.’ That’s a little disheartening. Because the one thing I try to tell those kids is that, ‘You have the rest of your life to be an average Joe. You can squeeze in four more years to be a student-athlete.’”

When she’s not trying to inform recruits of the enjoyment of playing college hockey, she’s trying to convince others that the level at which you do it shouldn’t matter.

Natalie Darwitz (Photo courtesy of Hamline University Athletics)

“So often there is a perception that I have to do D-1 and that playing D-III is a knock to my ego,” Darwitz explains. “It’s not; you just lack some skill or hockey awareness to not be on a D-1 roster.”

Teaching that skill is also a big part of her job. A lot her players at Hamline are still learning how to take their game to the next level. And while Darwtiz was one of — if not the— best of her time in women’s ice hockey, teaching others to be like her is not easy and, frankly, not her goal. Instead she focuses on going back to the basics and eventually building up.

“It takes a lot of ingredients to make cookies. Same thing when you play a 5-on-5 game,” she explains. “You have to do it first 1-on-0, 1-on-1, so we’re breaking stuff down.”

While this next step in her coaching career wasn’t necessarily planned, it will be where she stays for a while. Darwtiz and her husband Chris just had their first child over the summer and she is enjoying being able to be home with Joseph during the day while continuing to be around the game she loves.

“What resonated with me is that division III hockey would allow me to be at home when my son was born and be a stay at home mom and then allow me a couple of hours a day to be coaching,” she says. “It just kind of gives me a little more balance and stability in life.”

But when you’re arguably the most famous name in the game in which you’re coaching, people constantly want to know when or if you’ll try to coach at the highest level. But Natalie Darwitz knows that coaching at the highest level comes with the highest level of time commitment, something she is just not ready to commit to at this point in her life.

“Hockey is always going to be a part of my life, it’s just a matter of what percentage of my day is it going to take up,” says Darwtiz. “When my son gets older and hopefully plays, will I have to take a step back? I don’t know. The last thing I want to do is to be so busy helping other kids that I don’t get to see my own kid play.”

For now, she is excited about the task ahead of her at Hamline and the balance it provides between her two greatest loves; hockey and family, both of which she is committed to turning into winners.

The post Schwartz: The best of both worlds appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Wild assistant Sydor refuses to let “rock bottom” moment define him

“I hit rock bottom.”

Those were, ironically, the sobering words of Wild assistant coach Daryl Sydor who spoke after his first on ice practice with the Wild this week.

Sydor was arrested back in August and found guilty on two counts of driving while impaired.

Over the past two months Daryl Sydor has done a lot of thinking. He’s done less work on the X’s and O’s of hockey and more work on himself and his family life. He’s enjoyed playing dad more than he’s had to play coach. He’s watched games with his kids, sent them off to school and read them bed time stories at night.

Alcoholism is a disease that he’s battled for some time. In fact he says he was sober for more than 400 days before the incident. But the life of a professional hockey coach is stressful and the culture is less kind to an alcoholic than a forward skating across the middle with his head down. And in both situations, being caught off guard can cause a painful fall. No one knows this better now than Daryl Sydor.

But like any tough player he’s refusing to stay down. He’s starting to learn more about addiction and recovery so that he can battle it head on. He’s taken ownership and responsibility for his actions but he’s not letting one mistake ruin everything.

“I’ll go back to that day on August 20th,” Sydor recalled.  “That’s not me and I am not going to let that day define who I am.”

What will define who he is, he says, is his recovery. With a good team around him he’s not alone in it. As badly as the Wild need the help of the defensive-minded coach, Head Coach Mike Yeo will not hurry him back. It’s not a matter of handling him with “kid gloves” but rather giving Sydor the best chance to succeed.

“We need him and he is an important part of our group, but his well-being has to come first.” Yeo said following Tuesday’s practice. “What he needed to do and what he needed to take care of, for himself and for his family, that came first.”

Sydor is going to put himself first a lot more now — He has to. He can’t afford to lose himself or his way anymore, because another mistake could put him in a worse situation than he found himself in August. But the Wild believe that he’s in the right place to come back. If he wasn’t they certainly wouldn’t have let him.

At home, his family is ready to let him get back to work as well. They are excited for him to get back to doing what he loves and have some normalcy to his life again. Even his 6-year old joked with him this week as he left for work saying; “I knew you’d go back to the Wild, dad.”

“It brings smiles,” Sydor says with a shy grin. “I am a different person now and those things are exciting.”

His new-found joy is something he hopes all who suffer with addiction can have. Which is why Sydor would like to get a message out and use his struggles as inspiration for others who might find themselves in a situation similar to his: Get help and don’t wait until it’s too late.

“They talk about alcoholics anonymous but there’s no need to be anonymous about it,” says Sydor. “You need to reach out and people need to know that there’s other people that can help you through it.”

Sydor found that out the hard way, but now he, his family and the Wild are hoping that his battle with “rock bottom” doesn’t get a rematch.

The post Schwartz: Back on his feet appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Craig Leipold’s stake in the Wild extends far beyond the bottom line

The post Schwartz: Fully invested appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Vets can’t be counted on to keep success window open

I think it’s time for the Wild to start to re-think their offseason approach to trades and free agency.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think we all love free agent Devan Dubnyk and what he’s brought to the franchise and, if all goes as planned, he’ll be a cornerstone for years to come.

I’m thinking more about moves that involved the acquisition of guys like Matt Moulsen, Chris Stewart and, of course, the much-maligned Thomas Vanek. Re-treads that have found a home here in Minnesota (for periods of time) and have done little more than vacuum money out of Craig Leipold’s vault.

I say it’s time to for the Wild to start thinking younger. The fact of the matter is that the Patrick Kane, Steven Stamkos, and John Tavares’s of the world are drafted — rarely are they acquired in free agency.

But there are always deals to be found (see the Nino Niederreiter trade) and this offseason it would benefit the Wild to find one. That may mean giving up a proven asset and a potential impact player in the process, but, as in life and the NHL, sometimes you have to give a little to gain a lot.

This past week Jim Matheson of the Edmonton Journal speculated about the possibility of a very intriguing deal; Jared Spurgeon for Nail Yakupov (Read the column here).

First of all, no I am not a fool.

Secondly, as good as Spurgeon is, the Wild have a nice defensive core returning and can afford to part with him. Dumba, Brodin and Suter might be three of the best blue-liners in the league. Marco Scandella made great strides this year as did Christian Folin and Jordan Leopold has at least one more good season left in him. Plus there are good free agents out there who could be acquired cheaply.

Where this team lacked in 2015 was offensive playmaking and scoring.  They ranked 13th in the NHL in the regular season in goals and, regardless of whom you assign the blame for that, it affected their record. In the post season it was even more apparent.

The Wild didn’t have one goal scorer in the top 25 for the post season and as a team they ranked 8th out of 16 teams in goals scored.  To put that in perspective Chicago played just 6 more games (to date) but scored 24 more goals — a lot those came from our good friend Patrick Kane.

The bottom line is that this should be a trade the Wild should jump at (or a trade that is similar.) Now, whether Edmonton will go for it is the big question. Still, this needs to be the way the Wild are thinking this offseason.

There is a window of opportunity for the Wild to make a run in the postseason and it’s currently wide open. But the Vaneks and the Stewarts of the NHL aren’t going to help hold it open, it’ll have to  be a new young talent ready to make plays and shine for this team in the years ahead — and just rip the whole thing off its hinges.

The post Schwartz: Wild must set sights on youth appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Winger leads Wild by example on and off the ice

Is there a better professional in the NHL or a guy you’d rather have playing for your hometown team than Zach Parise?

Let me answer that one for you. Unequivocally no.

When the Wild signed the winger as a free agent three years ago, we thought were getting a great hockey player. A local boy with a hockey legacy who possessed amazing skill, smarts and God-given talent.

Parise has been so much more, turning into a savior of this Wild franchise. In the beginning there were detractors who felt the Craig Leipold spent too much money on the deal. But three years later it’s clear the Wild bought into the hockey equivalent of Apple, just before the first iPhone.

And most only know the half of it.

Zach Parise is a one the NHL’s best players. He is also one of the hardest working. His motor never stops, neither does his drive or passion for the game. You would be hard pressed to think of a moment in which you were watching a Wild game the past few season and saw Zach Parise coasting.

His numbers show this as well. 80 goals and 50 assists in the regular season and in the post season he’s even better, (9 goals and 15 assists). And isn’t that what a franchise wants? Its biggest players playing their best hockey in the biggest games? (This was one of the many reasons that Marian Gaborik was such a maligned figure when he left Minnesota).

But talent alone is never enough and his leg power might only be matched by is brain power. After game 6 of the St. Louis series I asked Parise about his short-handed goal against Jake Allen in which he skated, full speed, to the goal line and scored on a near no-angle shot.

I inquired as to whether they as a team had practiced that, after I noticed a few players trying that move unsuccessfully throughout the series. Even as I asked the question I thought that it was a silly notion to think that a player would break down the game THAT much and practice that move and then be able to execute it in such a big game.

“Yup..I did my homework on him,” Parise told me with a coy smile.

It’s one thing to know the game it’s another to be able to execute it at a high level, with speed and efficiency. That is was separates the ‘goods’ from the ‘greats”. It’s what makes Jason Zucker a good player, who is striving to learn from and aspire to be the great player that Parise is and why Mike Yeo matched them up earlier in the season to help Jason unlock the potential Yeo believed that he had. And if it wasn’t for an injury that kept him out for months, Zucker was on pace for a career year.

Therein lies the greater benefit to having a guy like Parise in the locker room. He embraces his role as a leader, maybe even relishes in it. He talks and teaches other players and he leads by example.

In St. Louis I spoke with Craig Leipold for a TV interview and we had a conversation afterward about how this team just seemed poised to make a run and about how seriously and business-like they were handling this post season. He recognized that it started from the top with Zach Parise.

And selfishly he’s great to the media as well. I know, I know, to the masses it means very little. But in this day and age of players feeling like we (the media) are the enemy, it’s nice for a guy to recognize that we’re just trying to do our job. It would be easy for Zach to brush us off at times, heck if he granted every interview request he’d never have time to breathe.

Still, after every win, lose, or draw; after every practice and even after his dad passed away after his battle with cancer, Zach Parise stands up and answers every question asked. No anger, no attitude, and never any rudeness.

Oh, how I wish every athlete would follow his example and understand that if you just play your game and answer a few questions, the world would be your oyster.

Parise will never have to worry about money, mostly due his contract in addition to his endorsements. Now, I am no ad-man but I have to think that I’d rather spend money on an athlete who always looks and sounds his or her best on camera, than an athlete who refuses to answer questions or when he/she does, seems like that rather be getting a root-canal (I’m looking at you Marshawn Lynch).

While there are other integral parts to this Wild team, it’s become clear that Parise is the driver of this car. And he’s has no intention of taking his foot off of the gas pedal until they cross the finish line in the position they want to … and maybe not even after that.

The post Schwartz: Parise keeps the pedal down appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.