Still Sore About Demotion, Mayer Eases Pain With Gulls : Hockey: Cut loose by Red Wings’ top farm club, Gulls’ scorer wants to prove he deserves another shot at the NHL.

The perfect teeth and flawless complexion are deceiving. This does not look like the face of a man who wrestles for a hockey puck by night to put bread on the table by day.

Derek Mayer, a 6-foot, 195-pound defenseman, could pack as powerful a punch on a poster as he does on the power play. So where are his bruises, stitches and scars to show for it?

When Mayer, 23, arrived in San Diego from the Adirondack Red Wings Nov. 1, his wounds were internal, hidden from all but those closest to him. His reassignment to the International Hockey League from the American Hockey League team Glens Falls, N.Y., was the last in a series of blows to him and his career.

But in his short tenure here, the healing process has progressed to where his scars are fading as fast as the points are mounting.

His 14-game point streak was snapped in a 6-4 loss Saturday to division-leading and host Kalamazoo Wings. However, in just 19 games, Mayer is fourth on the Gulls’ points leader board and holds the team record for the longest scoring streak.

“It had a lot to do with the way everyone else was playing,” Mayer said, spreading credit like holiday cheer. “Actually, it was kind of a relief (when it ended). You get to the point where you start worrying more about keeping it alive, and you tend to forget that you’re out there for defense.”

Through time, Mayer’s shifting mind-set has allowed him to forget the circumstances, which he’s still partially unsure of, that brought him to San Diego in the first place.

Mayer, from Rossland, British Columbia, was the Detroit Red Wings’ third-round pick in the 1986 entry draft. That was the first of three years he played for the University of Denver, under Ralph Backstrom, current Phoenix Roadrunner coach. After a one-year stint with the Canadian national team (1988-89), he signed with Detroit and played in Adirondack, the Red Wings’ top farm team, where he was the leading scorer in the playoffs.

When he reported to Detroit’s training camp this year, and was part of a herd of 200 players, Mayer first sensed trouble.

“I didn’t get enough time to prove myself against all the rookies,” he said. “Then when they were having me play forward, I knew I wasn’t in their plans.”

When he was sent back to Adirondack, management encouraged him to get an apartment, which Mayer took as a sign that the Wings did have plans for him, but they were short lived.

“Then they told me I was going to San Diego,” Mayer said, who had been in a car accident and was dealing with a relationship gone sour at the time of his demotion. “At first, I thought it was a joke. Bad things happen in threes I guess. They just said they had decided to go with the younger players, not the best like they said they would. But I’m 23, it’s not like I’m a fossil.”

Detroit had committed itself to a youth movement from which Mayer was two years removed.

“I know it sounds crazy,” said Barry Melrose, Adirondack’s coach and general manager. “But we’re committed to youth and we have three 20- and two 21-year old defensemen. We decided to have a young team, and we had to go with the kids. It was strictly an age thing.”

Melrose said it is never easy to send anyone down, and when it is someone as talented as he said Mayer is, the chore is doubly difficult.

“It’s very hard to send someone like him down,” Melrose said. “He’s still a young man. Detroit’s still very high on Derek and I still feel he can play in the NHL. He just got caught in the shuffle.”

Mayer tried not to take the cards he was dealt personally, but says there is a small part of him that wants to succeed for revenge.

“It’s kind of a driving force,” he said. “It was the first time someone just gave up on me, and you want to prove that you’re good enough, that they made a mistake, and you want to shove it in their faces.”

With six goals and 16 assists, he’s pushing, having already broken the career-high five goals he scored in 34 games at Denver in 1987-88. And Gull fans might remember the night his streak started. It won’t appear on his individual statistics, but Mayer scored the winning goal, the 20th shot, in a 5-4 shootout victory Nov. 9 against the Kansas City Blades.

Gulls Coach Mike O’Connell, who uses Mayer in just about every conceivable situation on the ice, shares the theory that Mayer now is getting some well-earned attention.

“I think people have to take notice,” O’Connell said. “Wherever we go, someone asks about him.”

O’Connell says he’s pleased to have Mayer, but that Adirondack may have used poor judgment in releasing him.

“He’s been real big plus for us,” he said. “I’m glad Adirondack felt they didn’t have room for him. I thought they made a mistake. I think he could be their best defenseman.”

Instead he is the Gulls’ best. And for now, that’s enough.

“I was disappointed at first (being in San Diego),” Mayer said. “But this is really an opportunity for me to stand out and do something for myself. I just want to make the best of things here. If you do work hard, things will eventually work out for you.”

That they’ve worked out so well this far is a surprise to Terry O’Malley, the University of British Columbia’s hockey coach. O’Malley coached Mayer as a midget player at Notre Dame, a private high school in Saskatchewan, where hockey is a much a passion as football is at the other Notre Dame.

“That he went on and did well is a reflection of a hard work ethic,” O’Malley said. “He worked at his weaknesses instead of his strengths, which is unusual. It wasn’t evident as a midget that he would go this far, but through his size, strength and attitude, he’s made it work for him.

“When he went to Denver, he sent me a T-shirt and thanked me for my assistance in getting him a scholarship there,” he said. “Not many players do that.”

As for Mayer’s success here, O’Connell says it’s pure talent, not chemistry or timing, that has allowed him to shine.

“He can skate and he’s skilled,” O’Connell said. “He has all the tools necessary to play in this league and in the NHL. He just has natural ability. I put him everywhere--he can skate and shoot, he can pass and read plays, and he’s strong. He has all those things.”

Melrose says Mayer’s expanded role and playing time in San Diego will get him noticed quicker than if he were playing in the AHL now.

“He’s playing in San Diego lots more than he’d play here,” he said. “He needs people watching him, and that’s what’s happening there.”

Having seen him play in the IHL three times already, Melrose has determined Mayer is the best defenseman in the league.

“He’s the best in that league,” he said. “I haven’t seen anyone with more talent there. The IHL’s a little more wide open than the AHL, and he can really showcase his skills there.”