Pasquale on the rebound
With hip problems resolved, netminder aiming for a second stint with IceCaps
Brian Rogers wasn’t calling the action — it was just a game-day practice — but when the glove hand came up to deny what looked to be a sure goal, a phrase that included the words “cowhide crab” certainly sprang to mind.
And was there a faint “Eddie, Eddie!” chant heard somewhere in the stands at the Corner Brook Civic Centre?
Goaltender Eddie Pasquale looked good in an extended game-day skate with the St. John’s IceCaps Thursday morning in advance of their first preseason contest against the Toronto Marlies that night in Stephenville, a contest he started in net.
Looking good and feeling good.
The 24-year-old Pasquale is on the comeback trail with the IceCaps, looking to rebound from hip problems that required two surgeries, a first one in early 2014 that ended his first go-around with the IceCaps and his time as a Winnipeg Jets prospect, and a second by doctors with the Washington Capitals, who had acquired him in a trade in the summer of that year.
It turns out he never played a game for the Capitals’ organization — the entire 2014-15 season was a washout because of his medical issues — but he does appreciate his time with Washington.
He had been told he should be ready to resume playing eight months after the original surgery, but found he couldn’t push off his leg when skating.
“They were saying ‘You’re cleared to play. You should be good.’ But you know your body and I wasn’t able to come close to what I should have been able to do,” he recalled. “(There were) some bone chips or something there from after the first surgery that they couldn’t see. I don’t really know the medical terms they throw at you, but (doctors in Washington) went in there and cleaned it all up and it looks good now.
“The best thing was getting treated in Washington. If I didn’t go there, I don’t know where I’d be.”
Recommended by Montreal assistant general manager Rick Dudley, who had drafted Pasquale when he was GM of the Atlanta Thrashers, the Canadiens signed him to an AHL contract with the IceCaps over the summer. That means Pasquale, who had found himself in threegoalie situations with the AHL’s Chicago Wolves when they were Atlanta’s farm team, and twice with St. John’s, is in another one — kind of — with the Canadiens-affiliated IceCaps.
He and high-profile rookie Zach Fucale are the only contracted netminders in camp right now, but there will be another assigned from Montreal sometime in the next week or so. That means someone is heading to the Brampton Beast of the ECHL.
Pasquale shrugs off the ques- tion about the possibility of him ending up with the Beast.
“With Montreal, everyone knows Carey Price is not going anywhere, but on teams, there is always someone knocking on doors, there’s always competition, or there should be, because you practice that much harder, you skate that much harder,” he said. “It’s good for the team and for the player.
“You look at Hutchy ( former IceCaps goaltender an teammate Michael Hutchinson). He started in Ontario (of the ECHL), and a year later, he was in the NHL.”
“There’s not much you know for sure, but I do know I feel good. I knew if I was going to play again, I’d have to come back better than before and now I’m in the best shape I’ve ever been in, feeling healthier overall.
“So you know what? I’m just happy to playing again, and I mean that. Hey, last year this time, I was thinking I’d have to retire.”