St. Louis determined to overcome the odds again

TAMPA, Fla.

Once again, Martin St. Louis is taking the “back-door entrance.” That was how the Tampa Bay Lightning captain described his lastsecond inclusion in Canada’s Olympic hockey team after Steven Stamkos dropped out on Wednesday with a leg injury. It was not meant as a joke. It was just the reality of a career where nothing has come easy.

How many times has the Laval native been passed over? How many times has he had to prove first impressions are wrong?

Never drafted into the NHL, he was let go by the Calgary Flames in 2000 and then went unpicked again in the expansion draft before signing as a free agent in Tampa Bay. The rest is well known. St. Louis has gone on to win a Stanley Cup, a Hart Trophy as league MVP, and two scoring titles, all the while stomping any doubts that standing just 5-foot-8 would hold him back.

By now, at age 38, he probably figured he was past this. But then his own general manager, Steve Yzerman, did it again by leaving him off Canada’s 2010 Olympic team. Yzerman, still the top man in Canada’s hockey management group, had to deliver the same news again last month.

So, as St. Louis spoke on Thursday, he sounded a bit conflicted. Part of him is obviously relieved to finally be going to Sochi. But part of him wants to prove the initial snub was a mistake. Do not expect him to go to Sochi simply as the 13th forward.

“I’m just happy I’m getting an opportunity,” St. Louis said Thursday. “I feel my career, how I came in this league, is kind of a back-door entrance. It’s kind of the same way.

“At the end of the day, however you get there, people don’t really care. That’s my mentality. This is a big opportunity.”

St. Louis said Yzerman told him Wednesday he would be replacing Stamkos. It might have seemed like a sentimental choice, a chance to right a previous wrong. But you cannot argue that St. Louis was not the most deserving candidate.

In the 14 games since he was snubbed, St. Louis had scored eight goals and 16 points to keep a Stamkos-less Lightning team in second place in the Atlantic Division.

GRAIG ABEL/NHLI VIA GETTY IMAGES LATE ADDITIONMartin St. Louis, of the Tampa Bay Lightning, has been named to replace teammate Steven Stamkos on Team Canada’s Olympic roster. The move rectifies what many saw as a snub of the Laval native.