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BOSTON— There were times, when Wade Redden was banished to the bus leagues for the crime of possessing an exorbitant contract, that he thought about quitting the game he loves.
“It depends on what day you asked, I guess,” Redden was saying on Friday.
But Redden didn’t retire during his two seasons as the highest paid player in the history of the American Hockey League. And there he was on Wednesday night, bearing the fruits of staying the course. Redden scored a goal and added an assist to help the Boston Bruins beat the Maple Leafs 4-1 in Game 1 of their best-of-seven first-round playoff series. And who, exactly, saw that coming?
“I just stuck with it,” Redden said of his two seasons away from the NHL. “And I’m glad I did.”
Redden’s is a rare tale of redemption. His bad break was a misfortune any of us would be happy to endure: He was overpaid and under-performed, to the point that the New York Rangers calculated that it’d be best to stash his $6.5 million cap hit in the AHL. He played 119 games in the minors beginning in the fall of 2010, this before the new collective bargaining agreement included a provision that allowed the Rangers to buy out his contract.
Redden, no longer attached to the mammoth deal, signed a one-year pact worth $800,000 with the St. Louis Blues back in January before he was acquired by the Bruins last month for a sixth-round pick. Certainly he didn’t always harbour realistic thoughts that he’d ever again be a contributor on an NHL playoff team. And yet here he resides — a player synonymous with ill-headed over-spending making a case as one of the best bargain pickups of the year.
“You never really know what the future holds for you, but my goal was always to get back into the league, to get a spot,” Redden said. “Part of what kept me going was wanting to get back. I knew if I went down (to the AHL) and had a bad attitude or just was a bad distraction, that certainly wouldn’t help my chances of getting back. I got down there, kind of accepted my fate, and just tried to approach the game like I always did.”
Saturday’s Game 2 will mark Redden’s 103rd post-season game, and there’s a decent chance his partner on the blue line will be playing his first. With Bruins veteran Andrew Ference due to serve a one-game suspension for his Game 1 head hit to Mikhail Grabovski, it’s expected that 19year-old rookie Dougie Hamilton will see action. When Hamilton was a healthy scratch in the series opener, he joined a considerable list of firstyear Bruins who’ve failed to crack coach Claude Julien’s post-season lineup. But while Julien would not confirm Hamilton’s impending insertion, at Friday’s practice in suburban Wilmington, Redden and Hamilton did drills as a tandem. The coach, meanwhile, spoke highly of the 6-foot-5 defenceman.
“He might be a young player for the playoffs, but to me, at this stage, the amount of games that he’s played, he’s a veteran,” Julien said of Hamilton. “We don’t look at guys, necessarily as rookies, we look at them as young players, but he’s a young player that’s going to be playing his first game, if not (Saturday), soon. I think that’s the thing with him, he’s played enough hockey to understand what’s at stake here.”
Hamilton is best known to Leafs Nation as the player selected by the Bruins in 2011 with one of the first-round draft picks sent to Boston in the Phil Kessel trade. Like another piece of that deal, Boston forward Tyler Seguin, Hamilton grew up in the GTA as a fan of the blue and white (Mats Sundin and Bryan Berard were among his favourite players).
“I wouldn’t say I was a die-hard (fan), but I definitely liked them a lot,” Hamilton said of the Maple Leafs. “It’s pretty cool. I grew up watching the playoffs and dreaming about playing in the playoffs. Hopefully I’ll bring some intensity (on Saturday). ... If I get the opportunity, I’m ready.”
Redden endorsed the idea of Hamilton making his debut in the Stanley Cup tournament.
“Experience only comes with experience,” Redden said. “He’s proven he belongs here.”
It hasn’t always been clear where Redden belonged in Boston. He looked like an insurance policy when he sat in the press box in seven of his first eight games as a Bruin. But Julien has his affection for veterans, and Redden has impressed.
“I was really happy for (Redden),” the coach told reporters this week. “I think he’s a player that has gone through some rough times. What we’ve tried to do when he came here is make him feel welcome, make him feel appreciated, and give him some confidence that way. So far, it’s paid dividends.”
Indeed, it’s an improbable reversal for Redden, who has previously been linked to some of the sport’s most notorious managerial blunders. He’s the guy the Ottawa Senators lived to regret choosing over Zdeno Chara, now the Bruins captain. He’s the guy the Rangers lived to regret overpaying. Now that he’s being heralded as the guy the Bruins stole for a song, he’s been around long enough to appreciate the change of tune.
“Obviously I’ve had a lot of ups and downs,” Redden said. “Being back in the NHL, I just try to enjoy it, try and get the most out of it here. You never know when it’s going to end.”