Green Hits the Road for a Game at Home

The phone rang in Camrose, about an hour south of here, and the message was approximately, “Eeeeeeyowwww,” followed by, “What are you doing Saturday night?”

Svend and Carol Green had no real plans, so they said they would be more than happy to meet their son, Josh, at Edmonton Coliseum.

Oh, and they would bring along a few relatives and friends.

“Then I began trying to line up tickets,” said the Kings’ rookie winger, Josh Green, who will need about 30 for his NHL debut tonight against what was, until recently, his favorite team.

“I went to two or three of their games, and I grew up watching them on TV,” Green said of the Oilers. “I can remember, growing up, sitting there watching, thinking maybe someday I would be out there. It’s really very exciting to me.”

He has seen this coming since training camp began, when word filtered down that he was well-regarded and had a chance to make the roster. But Edmonton and Oct. 10 looked way off in the distance in the summer sun outside North Hills’ Iceoplex, where he was competing for a job.

And then they got closer, and now Green skates on a line with center Yanic Perreault and winger Luc Robitaille, who likes the composition and particularly likes his linemate.

“I think the biggest thing might be the way he goes to the net really hard,” Robitaille said of Green, who split time last season between Portland and Fredericton of the American Hockey League.

“If a guy on your line goes to the net hard, a defenseman has to take him and that opens up spaces for others.”

A sniper such as Robitaille likes those wide-open spaces.

And Green likes creating them with his 6-foot-4, 212-pound body, using muscle to try to overcome his lack of acceleration. His first step is a bit slow.

“My game is to get the puck out on my wing, get it to those guys and go to the net,” he said. “Like on power plays, I can screen the goalie and tip in shots. I’ve scored a lot of goals like that, tipping it in or getting the rebound.”

One such goal clinched a spot for him with the Kings. He muscled into position in front of the Vancouver Canucks’ Garth Snow, then tipped in a shot by Philippe Boucher on Sunday night in an exhibition game.

But that was in Bakersfield, and tonight is a regular-season game at home, er, on the road, on ice he skated on as a tot, when his minor team won a contest to practice at the Coliseum. Waiting are defensemen ready to play the game of push-and-shove in front of the net.

One is Marty McSorley, once a King, this week an Edmonton Oiler and, at 36, 15 years Green’s senior.

“All of that is easy to say,” Green said of the description of his game. “I’ll probably be out there running around like my head’s cut off. I just want to get that first shift over.”

He’ll probably get a quick chance.

“A lot of times, it’s good to get these guys in there in the first shift of the game to get all the nervousness out,” said Coach Larry Robinson. “I don’t know if he’s the nervous type, though, he’s so quiet.”

Yes, he is.

“I just want to go out for the first game and get through it,” Green said.