Oilers hit a home run scooping up Hemsky in the 2001 NHL Draft
Before the 2001 NHL Entry Draft, a team executive remembers interviewing Ales Hemsky.
“He was slouched in a chair, looking at us like, ‘yeah, yeah, what do you want? Don’t bother me.’ He was almost laying on the floor,” laughed the team management type, who wasn’t working for the Oilers at the time.
Hemsky wasn’t being disrespectful, just matter-of-fact. Hemsky never got too anxious about anything.
Hemsky, who officially retired Friday after 652 games for the Oilers and another 193 with Ottawa, Dallas and Montreal, was always laid back. At 17, he was the youngest player in the draft in Florida.
He had a wonderful career with the Oilers before being traded to Ottawa in 2014 for a third- and fifth-round pick. He later signed in Dallas where he currently lives with his wife, whom he met in Edmonton, and two kids. He finished up with Montreal.
Hemsky played hurt here often and never complained after taking many a pile-drive into the end boards by Calgary Flames defenceman Robyn Regher, but his body began to break down after he left the Oilers. He had two hip surgeries and a bad concussion in Montreal.
Looking back, Hemsky — who had 477 points with the Oilers — was a terrific pick at No. 13 in 2001, Kevin Prendergast’s first time running the Oilers draft table after Barry Fraser had retired. The Oilers took Hemsky after Nashville selected Dan Hamhuis at 12, and before Calgary got Chuck Kobasew at No. 14.
“The other player we were looking at was (Tuomo) Ruuttu but he got taken before us (ninth to Chicago),” recalled Prendergast,
now retired and living in Sherwood Park. “From a staff standpoint, everybody was high on Ales ... the only guy on the staff who didn’t see him play well most of the year was me. I went to see him play three times and each time he floated around. But in each game he scored a goal.
“At the NHL Prospects game that year I saw him at a scrimmage and he undressed some guy and I thought, ‘Oooh, this kid’s special.’ We interviewed him before the draft and he was exactly the way he played. He said (re: floating), ‘sometimes I play like that.’ When we talked to him he was at the end of the table and not intimidated at all. I remember him saying, ‘yeah, I do this and this and (Jaromir) Jagr is my favourite player’ and he said ‘sometimes I play like I’m not interested, but I really am.’
“That’s just the way he was. Just before our pick, I looked down at all our scouts and asked ‘Is Hemsky the guy?’ They all said, ‘of course he is.’ He wasn’t very big (170 pounds) but he had a big rear and big legs and getting hit was like water off a duck’s back.
“I remember his first Oiler main camp, he wasn’t intimidated. One of our first practices, he undressed one of our veteran defenceman. I thought, ‘Holy, crap, this kid has talent.’ And that’s when he won over the veterans.”
Hemsky’s junior (Hull Olympiques) GM Charlie Henry, the long-time friend of Walter Gretzky, was at 2001 draft and the feeling was Arizona would take Hemsky. Walter asked Henry if he wanted to sit at the Arizona draft table where Wayne Gretzky’s long-time agent Mike Barnett was Coyotes GM. Wayne was the managing owner with Steve Ellman.
“No, how would that look if the Coyotes took my player Hemsky and I was sitting with you,” said Henry, who watched Arizona take Swedish forward Fred Sjostrom at No. 11, not Hemsky. And in one of those twists of fate, Sjostrom has been GM of the Swedish team Frolunda for four years, where Oilers Joakim Nygard and new signing Theodor Lennstrom played.
“If you looked at the pre-draft hype, Hemsky was never very high on anybody’s list. Sjostrom had a helluva year in junior (Sweden) and while Charlie raved about Ales, I don’t know if he had enough pull with that (Coyotes) organization for them to take Ales,” said Prendergast.
Henry had all the time in the world for the waif Hemsky, whose dad Petr coached the Pardubice (Czech) hometown team and also owned two photo shops.
“Ales is one of the best players I’ve ever had and about 40 players have gone from Hull to the NHL. Jeremy Roenick, Martin Gelinas,” said Henry.
Hemsky’s playoff against Detroit in 2006 was very special but the play etched in everybody’s mind came on Jan. 4,
2007, when Dallas forward Patrik Stefan stole the puck and had an empty net to seal it with five seconds to play.
The puck bounced over the stick of Stefan from two feet out and he completely muffed it. Jarret Stoll sent the puck 100 feet to Ryan Smyth, who got it over to Hemsky, who undressed Marty Turco with two seconds left to tie it 5-5.
This ’n’ that: The Oilers would love to bring over Swedish 2019 first-round pick Philip Broberg as a taxi-squad player when the NHL gets up and running, if it’s late summer. The 19-year-old defenceman was at Oilers development camp last summer but never around Connor Mcdavid or Leon Draisaitl ... Interesting that on TSN’S all-time Oiler team they wouldn’t put Mark Messier on left wing to get Doug Weight at centre even though Messier was an NHL all-star there for three years but when TSN picked their all-time Canadian international teams list, there was Messier on left wing beside Joe Sakic.