Getting His Career in Shape

When the game of hockey is under control, the players fit into their roles: the passer, checker, scorer.

But when an opponent tries to expand his role, that’s when the trouble starts. He becomes an odd shape and things no longer fit.

Enter Shawn Antoski of the Mighty Ducks. His job is to bash that square peg into a round hole, make things fit and restore order.

After a season of disorder, Antoski is ready to rearrange his career.

“The scrimmages and practices are all great . . . but the real test is when you get into that game situation where I’m not playing against my buddy who I’m sitting next to in the dressing room,” said Antoski, 6 feet 4, 235 pounds.

“I’m [talking about] playing against a guy that wants to take me apart as much as I want to take him apart. It’s beating him to every loose puck and winning on that scoreboard when the buzzer goes at the end of the game.”

In the first game of this season, he was on the Ducks’ fourth line and scored a goal, his first since Jan. 28, 1996.

Against the Canucks in two games last weekend in Tokyo, he had a point, a plus-minus rating of plus-one and no injuries.

Antoski, 27, has faced numerous opponents, but the three that keep getting the best of him are injuries, expectations and himself.

The clock is ticking.

The personal scorecard reads: injured knee ligament, separated shoulder, fractured knuckle, sprained thumb, sore hand, injured shoulder, strained hamstring, sprained ankle, strained hip, strained hip, hernia surgery.

In seven previous NHL seasons, Antoski played in 174 games with two goals, five assists and 581 penalty minutes.

Check that last number. General managers and coaches get interested when they see it. Teammates sleep easier knowing the big man is on their side.

“Hopefully [Antoski] can stay healthy and play the whole year,” said Warren Rychel, his linemate in the first two games and a winger who will drop the gloves when needed. “I think the big thing for him is to prepare to play every game.

“In order for everybody to be effective, he’s got to fight for every game. He’s a heavyweight here and he’s got to play 100% in all the games. That makes it a lot easier on everybody.”

That was the plan last November when the Ducks sent Alex Hicks and Fredrik Olausson to Pittsburgh for Antoski and Dmitri Mironov.

He displayed some of that toughness against the Islanders on Nov. 20. The Duckstied, 2-2, and Antoski suffered a strained left hip. He missed 19 games.

With Antoski back in the lineup Jan. 8, the Ducks used a crash-and-bash approach to win, 3-2.

“Sometimes you’ve got to win ugly,” defenseman Bobby Dollas said after the game. “We need the Rychels, the Antoskis to just crush people.”

That was Antoski’s last game of the season.

“I tried to play with [the pain],” Antoski said. “I felt good playing in that game. The next day in practice, I hurt my other side.

“All I was doing was setting myself back that much more. If I had tried to play through that double injury, what would have transpired during the summer?”

After a month of waiting and wondering about making another attempt to play, Antoski had surgery Feb. 7 to correct the situation.

“I talked to the doctors about it and figured the issue should be addressed right away,” Antoski said. “I might have missed over half the season but at the same time, I am ready for a full season this year.”

Some coaches dance around the issue. Duck Coach Pierre Page pulls no punches with his physical player.

“I think it’s not too late for him to show people what he can really do,” Page said. “He’s a guy who can skate and be a pest. I don’t know what happened to him the last few years.”

When Antoski’s game is under control, he knows his role and fits into it. But when a coach tries to keep him in the dark, that’s when the trouble starts.

“I had a lot of problems in Philadelphia. It wasn’t fun anymore,” said Antoski, who played 1 1/2 seasons with the Flyers before signing with the Penguins as a free agent before the 1996-97 season. “The communication [with then-Coach Terry Murray] wasn’t there. I suffered.

“Even when I left the rink, I would take the game home with me. And that’s one thing why I wanted to get away from him.”

He played 64 games in ‘95-96. He had just one goal and three assists to go with 204 penalty minutes.

More than a few of those penalty minutes came from, well, personal fouls.

“I didn’t know what my next move was going to be or where I would end up. I more or less got sidetracked with the fact that I was taking out my aggressions on the ice,” he said.

“I would play two or three shifts a game and I would probably fight twice out of those two or three shifts.”

Let’s make this clear, Antoski usually sticks around when the trouble starts. This time, he found an opportunity to leave Philadelphia and all the torment.

Antoski jumped to Pittsburgh before being traded to Anaheim. Murray helped get the Flyers to the 1997 Stanley Cup finals.

After Game 3, Murray described his team as being in a “choking situation.” After Game 4 and a sweep by Detroit, Flyer General Manager Bob Clarke fired Murray, citing poor player relations.

“When I left Philly, it was more [for my benefit] than it was Philadelphia,” Antoski said. “I think that last year, the way things went for Philadelphia [at the end of the season], it was pretty evident what the coaching was like.”

When a teenage skater plays junior hockey in Canada, he has to prove how much he wants it in one of two ways: score or fight. For the scorer, big numbers mean big-time attention when you get closer to your 18th birthday and eligibility for the NHL draft.

If you are a big boy, you enter the Western, Ontario or Quebec junior leagues, knowing it will be a gladiator academy. Antoski averaged 30 points and 188 penalty minutes in Ontario with North Bay, making a big leap in goals (six to 25) while maintaining his level of toughness (201 PIM) in his final season of juniors.

Then he moved to the Canuck organization, spending most of three seasons in the minors, with each year away from the big team raising a question.

Why isn’t he up here?

“It was a learning experience for me, both mentally and physically,” Antoski said. “You’re coming in as a 19-year-old kid and you’re not playing with kids anymore. You’re playing with men.

“It was a big adjustment for me just due to the pressure of being a first-round pick and everything else that goes with it.”

Today, what goes with it are questions about whether he can expand his role and the knowledge that Keith Tkachuk, Martin Brodeur and Bryan Smolinski were picked after he was selected 18th overall.

“If he could just get excited the way he was when he got drafted,” said Page, who wants more enthusiasm and offensive production from the man designated to fill the role Ken Baumgartner vacated when he signed as a free agent with Boston.

“I was kind of telling him that when he got drafted, he was the talk of the town [Vancouver] because he had the personality. He was kind of the Brian Bosworth of hockey.”

But Bosworth made a cameo appearance in the NFL before moving to the movies, where legends are made up. By demanding more, Page is working to get Antoski in a role less tenuous.

“Pierre approached me on several occasions throughout training camp, which is a good sign for me,” said Antoski, who proudly notes he still has the long hair, tattoos and the Harley. “Bert Templeton [his coach] told me when I was playing junior, ‘The more the coach talks to you the better.

‘If he doesn’t want to talk to you, you should start worrying because he doesn’t give a [crap] about you.’ ”

Page cares, but he needs Antoski to seize this chance now. The clock is ticking.

“To me, it is his choice,” Page said. “We can help him out and give him the opportunity, but he’s got to make a choice on how bad he wants it.”