Turn for the Worse

All along the way, even as he attained his boyhood dream of playing in the NHL, there were hints that all was not well with Mike Danton.

Until recently, the best-known evidence of that was two years ago when he legally changed his last name from Jefferson, saying he had “issues” with his family.

Typically, Danton never said what exactly those issues were, but this much is clear: Differences with his family are no longer his biggest problem.

Danton, 23, a fourth-line center for the St. Louis Blues, appeared in federal court in East St. Louis, Ill., on Tuesday, where he entered a plea of not guilty to charges that he conspired to kill an acquaintance in a murder-for-hire plot.

Danton and his alleged accomplice, Katie Wolfmeyer, 19, were indicted by a federal grand jury April 22, six days after he was taken into custody at an airport in San Jose.

His arrest came only hours after the San Jose Sharks had eliminated the Blues in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. During that series, Danton had scored his first NHL playoff goal, a highlight in a season in which he established a role for the first time.

Danton wasn’t a star for the Blues, but he contributed with seven goals. Despite his less-than-intimidating 5-foot-9, 191-pound frame, he was something of a tough guy, tying for the team lead with 141 penalty minutes in 68 games.

“Things were finally turning around for him,” said the Mighty Ducks’ Petr Sykora, a teammate of Danton when both played for New Jersey.

Then came a turn for the worse.

Federal authorities say Danton, with Wolfmeyer’s help, tried to hire a hit man, offering $10,000 for the killing of an unidentified acquaintance at Danton’s St. Louis-area apartment.

The target, authorities say, had argued with Danton on April 13 about the player’s “promiscuity and use of alcohol.” Fearing the acquaintance would talk to Blues’ officials and damage his career, Danton tried to arrange the “hit.” Instead, police were contacted and the FBI was alerted.

Court documents do not identify the man Danton allegedly targeted, but a law enforcement source, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said it was David Frost, the player’s agent, longtime friend and former coach.

Frost, 37, did not return phone calls to his Southern California office, but he has denied being the target.

Danton remains in custody in Clinton County, Ill., pending a detention hearing Friday. His attorney, Bob Haar, said he will request that Danton be released on bail, but federal prosecutor Randy Massey said he will ask that Danton stay in jail. His pretrial hearing was scheduled for July 12 and the trial for July 20.

Wolfmeyer already has pleaded not guilty and is in the custody of her parents on $100,000 bond.

Danton’s mother, Sue Jefferson, younger brother Tom, and aunt, Linda Gebe, were in court Tuesday for the hearing. So too were Blues’ teammates Scott Mellanby and Doug Weight, along with Jim Woodcock, the team’s marketing director.

Gebe said the family was holding up “as well as can be expected.”

Woodcock said, “We’re here just to observe and support Mike, to show him we stand by him.”

As for other players, former teammates and rivals who knew Danton as he made his way up hockey’s junior ranks, most say they are shocked by the allegations.

But they are not surprised that any controversy involving Danton also includes Frost.

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Playing in the NHL was something Danton craved from an early age growing up in Ontario, Canada. And while he lacked dynamic skills, he had a scrappy way about him that impressed scouts.

“Mike was always one of the smallest kids on ice and always the first one in the fight,” said Andre Carrier, who played junior hockey with Danton. “He was always there to protect his teammates, kind of like the role he was playing in the NHL.”

Danton was 11 when his family welcomed a local youth coach into the picture, thinking Frost could help Mike attain his professional aspirations.

Those familiar with Ontario youth leagues weren’t so sure. They knew Frost as a man who seemed to have unusual sway with some of the circuit’s most talented young players and worried, one team owner said, about his “cult-like attraction.” Two leagues banned him from coaching.

But Frost deflected much of the criticism, saying that if getting his players to go to school and maintain their grades and work hard was having too much influence, “then I’m guilty.”

Later, however, Frost pleaded guilty to punching one of his players while he was an assistant coach in another league. As terms of his plea, he paid a small fine and received probation.

Danton played for three different junior teams in the Ontario Hockey League, scoring 179 points in 141 games while playing for Sarnia, St. Michael’s and Barrie.

Though obviously talented, he was traded twice -- each time as part of a group of players who were associated with Frost.

“I knew something was going to happen to those guys,” Carrier said. “They always seemed to do things together and didn’t hang out with anyone else.”

That was apparently standard procedure from the beginning of Danton’s career in the Metropolitan Toronto Junior Hockey League, the step before the OHL.

Elena Phillips -- a Deseronto, Ontario, resident who took in Danton as a boarder during the 1996-97 season he played with Quinte -- recalled arriving home from a weekend trip to find Danton, Frost and three other players having a barbecue in her backyard.

“I said hello and told them to have a wonderful time and that I wouldn’t bother them,” Phillips said. “David Frost pointed at the [other] three fellas and they all picked up the food and walked away. I thought it was so unnatural.”

Danton’s evenings, she said, were spent with other players at the motel where Frost stayed. “Mike would come home from school, eat his dinner and go do his homework at the motel,” Phillips said.

According to accounts, Frost was far more influential in Danton’s life than members of the player’s family, who lived about a three-hour drive away.

Phillips recalled Danton’s parents attended many games, but that he turned cold when she asked about them.

“I would ask, “Did you have a good visit with your parents?’ ” she said. “He’d walk away without saying anything.”

And then there was the time he walked away for good.

“I came home one day and everything of his was gone,” Phillips said. “There was no note saying goodbye, nothing. He had just moved out.

“I thought, ‘Oh God, what is going to happen to that young man?’ ”

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Although a controversial figure in many hockey circles, Frost for a time had the enthusiastic backing of at least one parent: Stephen Jefferson, Mike’s father.

Jefferson was quoted by the Toronto Sun five years ago saying, “Dave Frost is the best thing that ever happened to my kid.”

Recently, however, he has changed his tune, calling Frost a “monster.”

Stephen Jefferson has said that his differences with Frost came to a head two years ago over Frost’s involvement with Tom Jefferson, Mike’s younger brother.

Jefferson said he learned that he and his wife were being ridiculed in conversations Frost was having with Tom, another up-and-coming hockey prospect. Ontario provincial police also reportedly investigated an incident of alleged child abuse involving Frost and Tom, then 14, but no charges were filed.

Mike Jefferson became Mike Danton shortly after that, taking the surname of another hockey player he had met at a camp.

Since Danton’s arrest, the Jefferson family has continued to lash out at Frost, blaming him for his son’s problems.

Firing back, Frost has referred to Stephen Jefferson as a “village idiot,” and has hinted that he was an abusive father. “What Mike has gone through and he has had to deal with ... it is all eventually going to come out,” Frost told reporters.

What exactly Frost was referring to isn’t clear. This much is known for sure: Until the time of his arrest, Danton and Frost were nearly inseparable.

Danton was taken by New Jersey as the 135th pick of the 2000 draft, then sat out nearly all the 2000-01 season, refusing an assignment to the minor leagues because he said he had an abdominal injury. Frost gained certification from the NHL Players Assn. as an agent in 2002.

Danton’s two seasons with New Jersey were marked by public spats with Devils’ General Manager Lou Lamoriello, but by the end of his time with the team he had learned to keep quiet and work hard.

When he was traded to St. Louis before this season, former teammate Sykora said, “I think all the guys in New Jersey were cheering for him.”

The feeling wasn’t mutual. Before St. Louis played New Jersey for the first time this season, Danton had a puck delivered to the Devils’ dressing room. With it was a note that explained it was a memento from his first NHL goal, scored for New Jersey the previous season.

The message was clear: He was wiping the slate clean.

His former teammates shrugged it off. Typical Mike, they said. Still immature.

They don’t know what to think now, though -- of him, of Frost.

“We knew he had this agent who was taking care of him,” Sykora said. “Everybody has a guy like that.

“For me, it’s my dad.”

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Associated Press contributed to this report.