Back against wall, Ronning looks to dad for inspiration
This isn't new Ty Ronning territory.
The former Vancouver Giants sniper is a New York Rangers'farmhand and admits that he has things to prove this coming season in the AHL, whenever this coming season happens to be.
Ronning is in his final year of his initial three-year deal with the Rangers, and in 2019-20 he put up just one goal and three points in 23 games with their AHL Hartford Wolf Pack, to go with 11 goals and 24 points in 28 games with their ECHL Maine Mariners squad.
He's been here before, been in a spot where you wondered where things were going next. Ronning had one goal and two points in an injury-marred, 24-game season as a 17-year-old with the Giants in 2014-15. He responded the following season, tallying 31 times. The Rangers went on to use a seventh-round pick on the right winger in the NHL draft that summer.
In his 20-year-old season with the Giants in 2017-18, Ronning went off for a club-record 61 goals.
“It definitely puts my back against the wall. It definitely puts the pressure on,” Ronning said of his contract situation with the Rangers. “But I love the pressure. I've never been afraid of that. I've had tough seasons where I have had to bounce back. I believe in myself. I know what I'm capable of and it's about translating that when I get the opportunity. I know I can play in the AHL.
“I know I have to have a good year. That's really the bottom line.”
He's a five-foot-nine, 179-pound, seventh-round NHL draft pick. Ronning crams a lot of underdog status into that one sentence. One advantage he has is that he has someone close who truly gets all that entails.
Dad Cliff Ronning played 17 years in the NHL, including six with the Canucks. He was a smallish centre, coming in at five foot eight and 165 pounds, and he, too, was a seventh-round draft pick, chosen by the St. Louis Blues in 1984.
With all that Cliff accomplished, it's easy to forget he went and played a season in Italy in 198990 before coming back to the NHL.
An Oct. 21, 1988, story in The Vancouver Sun featured the headline: “Ronning's career reaching a crossroads” and included this sentence: “The NHL dream is slowly slipping away.”
The elder Ronning would go on to play 14 more seasons in the league after that story.
“His advice has been that if you can look at yourself in the mirror and say that you've given it all you've got, that's all that matters, whether you make it or you don't,” Ty explained. “I take that to heart. I know I'll do the best that I can.”
“I used to look at myself and say, `What if I don't make it?'” Ty admitted. “I take that now and say, `Why don't I just give it the best I can?' I know I'm a good player. I just want to show people.
“It's pretty simple: you either make it or you don't.”