After a Shaky Start, Kontos’ Future Bright

Chris Kontos prefers a very vague version of how his hockey career hit the skids.

The story of his career is crystal clear at the beginning, when he is a first-round draft pick of the New York Rangers and plays 44 games with them as an 18-year-old rookie.

And it’s a great story, rich in detail, when it picks up in the spring of 1989, with the Kings sending him a National Hockey League contract on the fax machine to the Beaver Lumber Yard in Midland, Canada, and his father pounding on his door in Waubashene in the wee hours of the morning to deliver it.

Kontos signs the contract, transmits it back just 30 minutes before the signing deadline, then goes on to score nine goals in the playoffs. Now he’s trying to win a spot on the Kings’ roster for good and for real. Maybe even on Wayne Gretzky’s left wing.

“I’ve always wanted a full season in the NHL to prove what kind of numbers I could put up,” Kontos was saying at Kings’ training camp. “I just want the chance to contribute in the NHL, and I’ve never felt better about an approaching season.”

A great beginning. Potential for a great ending. But in between . . .

The trouble began when, after just six games at the start of the 1983-84 season, the Rangers sent him down to their Central Hockey League club at Tulsa.

He doesn’t like to talk about those days. He’d like to have them forgotten. No sense in bringing up all that dirt now that he has a chance for a fresh start, right?

Asked about those times, Kontos says: “That was a long time ago. That has nothing to do with now.”

Asked about some of the crazy times when the Tulsa team was practicing at a mall, using soccer balls instead of pucks, Kontos says: “I don’t know about that. That was while I was away.”

There is one problem, though, with trying to keep the past a secret from the new team. One very big problem.

The coach of the Tulsa team at the time in question was Tom Webster, now the coach of the Kings. It does not come as news to Webster that Kontos refused to report to Tulsa. That he took his skates and went home. That he enrolled in a local university and threatened to leave hockey forever, rather than play in the minor leagues.

Will that hurt Kontos’ chances with the Kings? Will that count as a minus when Webster makes his cuts early next week? Did it influence whether Kontos’ name was among the protected 18 players on the list Webster and General Manager Rogie Vachon had to turn in Thursday night in advance of the Monday waiver draft?

“Webster? He won’t hold that against me,” Kontos said. “First of all, he’s not like that. But the biggest thing is, he saw me at 18. I’m 25 now. I’ve changed a lot. My attitude now is different.

“When the Rangers sent me to the minors and I sat out until Christmas, I was a wide-eyed kid who thought I was invincible. I didn’t know how to accept it, so I quit. . . .

“No doubt, it hurt my career. But I look back and I’m kind of glad it happened. If it had always been easy, I never would have had to grow up.”

It did seem easy when he was drafted so high and went right to the big leagues. Straight to New York. No wonder the setback was such a jolt.

“Only a few special people every few years make the transition from junior to pro or from college to pro right away,” Kontos said. “But when it’s handed to you, you just accept it as the way things should be. I wasn’t prepared to handle what happened to me.”

Kontos would handle it much differently now.

“Time makes the mind grow stronger,” he said. “I started at 18. It was laid out on a silver platter. It was just there and you accept it. Then one day, it’s taken away and you don’t know how to feel. You don’t know if you’re a failure or if they’re wrong. You just don’t know what to do.

“For four or five years I was a journeyman, playing in different leagues, learning different coaches, different management philosophies. I’m a professional hockey player now. I understand the game and how it works.

“I could have easily fallen to the wayside. I could easily have been forgotten when I finished (the 1988-89 season) in Switzerland. But the Kings gave me another chance, and I think I showed I could still do it.”

Kontos’ agent offered him to every team in the league and came up empty until the Kings decided to take a last-minute chance on him.

Kontos had one goal as he played with the Kings in a limited role at the end of the regular season but he became the Cinderella story of the playoffs as he worked on the power play with Wayne Gretzky and scored nine goals in 11 playoff games.

Now the question is: Was it a fluke? Did Kontos just have a magical spree there, during the playoffs, when he said, “It’s one of those strong feelings you get that everything’s coming your way. I don’t know if I’m blessed or lucky or talented or what.”

At this point, Kontos is arguing for talent. Sure he got those goals on tips and deflections and rebounds as he camped in the crease, but that was where he was supposed to be and that was what he was supposed to be doing. It was no accident. It’s his specialty. He was right where Gretkzy wanted him, and he was putting those pucks in the net.

“If it happened once or twice, one shift or one period, we might have to say I got lucky,” Kontos said. “But I’ve had two stints with the Kings now, and I held my own both times.”

Kontos was with the Kings for six games in February of 1988, when he was traded to Los Angeles from Pittsburgh.

When the Kings sent him down to New Haven in 1988, he reported as ordered. No nonsense.

“I’m a different person now,” Kontos said. “You can’t judge me now on what I did when I was an 18-year-old kid. I definitely don’t have an attitude problem now.

“Some guys blossom a little later.”