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Alexandre Daigle was once a "Can't-Miss" prospect, but several years and a few teams later, the Wild forward is content to just contribute.
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Daigle makes most of last chance
By Larry Wigge | NHL.com columnist
Nov. 1, 2005
There was Alexandre Daigle hustling to get the puck. Not afraid to get in front of a shot. Twice he broke up plays in the neutral zone and pushed the puck down into the St. Louis zone to keep the Blues from pulling goaltender Patrick Lalime for an extra attacker in the final minute of play with the Minnesota Wild hanging on to a 3-2 lead.
After the game, Daigle came out of the medical room to talk with icepacks on his groin and a wide smile on his face.
Where once Alexandre Daigle would have been jabbering away about the pass he made to help set up the winning goal by teammate Marc Chouinard, now, however, he was excited about something very different.
"Did you see that?" Daigle asked, with a wink. "Jacques (Wild Coach Jacques Lemaire) had me out there in the final minute. That's really something, eh?"
Daigle was thrilled that Lemaire chose him to be on the ice, when his team was trying to eke out a victory and needed discipline and dedication to play solid defense to win. Not a great revelation unless you've followed the whole, wild story of Alexandre Daigle.
It starts in 1993, when Daigle was selected first overall in the NHL Entry Draft by the Ottawa Senators, blessed with loads of talent, skill and promise. The career careens to now, when, at 30, he is simply satisfied with being singled out by his coach for a moment in time when he could be considered reliable defensively.
To some, the whole idea of Daigle still playing in the NHL at 30 is a wild story, almost beyond belief, because Alexandre was the "Can't-Miss-Kid" ... who did ... the first time, at least.
After being selected by the Senators in 1993, ahead of players like Chris Pronger, Paul Kariya, Jason Arnott, Kenny Jonsson, Jason Allison and Saku Koivu, Daigle became a player whose brilliant future quickly turned into a short-lived past by the time he was 25 and had already worn out his welcome with four different teams. Daigle bought a home on the beach in Southern California, drove around in a Porsche and occasionally got his name in the Hollywood gossip columns for being seen out on the town with an actress like Pamela Anderson or a singer like Sheryl Crow. Daigle said he needed to clear his mind, that he suffered through hockey burnout.
After two years away from the game, Daigle, while he was a season ticket holder for the Los Angeles Kings, had a revelation that there was still a yearning inside him that he could still play in the NHL.
So, Alexandre sold the Porsche -- and he committed himself to hockey again. Maybe more than the first time.
At 27, Daigle used a passing acquaintance with Mario Lemieux -- both were pretty good prospects who grew up in Montreal and learned about the expectation of being the No. 1 overall pick in the draft -- to get a chance to try out for Lemieux's Pittsburgh Penguins. Daigle impressed the Penguins enough to play 33 games for them in 2002-03, in which he totaled four goals and three assists, before they sent him down to Wilkes-Barre of the American Hockey League.
It was there, in the minors, where Daigle says he learned that the rust was gone and some of his skill and desire had returned.
"If my mind and will to play didn't change ... I was done ... finished with the game," Daigle admitted of his comeback opportunity in Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre.
"I didn't mind failing. I had no fear of that," he continued. "Instead, it was kind of a rebirth for me. I'm still in hockey ... but I'm a different person."
One problem: this new Alexandre Daigle didn't have a team to play for.
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Daigle has been a solid producer for Minnesota since arriving there two years ago.
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"I remember Pat Brisson (Daigle's agent) coming to me and saying that Alexandre really felt he could help us," Wild General Manager Doug Risebrough remembered. "I wasn't convinced. ... "
Risebrough's voice trailed off. He bit his tongue and didn't say what everyone else in the game was saying ... that maybe Daigle had already had his last chance.
Everyone still remembers the brilliant future that was predicted for a 17-year-old can't-miss kid who had 45 goals, 92 assists and 137 points in just 53 games as a junior. All of those points that were expected of such a phenom were used as reasons he failed. He didn't get 30 or more goals, 90 or more points a season. He barely made that much in his first two seasons with the Senators. He was fast, but was scorned for liking the fun and the fast lane off the ice more.
"I got them to agree to a last-chance contract that did not place any liability on the Wild," Risebrough said. "When he came to camp, there was apprehension on our part. But there was no laziness like before with Alex, only hard work. In the second half of the 2003-04 season, in fact, he was one of our best players ... every game.
"It's funny, but not all people fit in certain places ... in certain situations. For Alex, that fit was with the Wild."
Truth be told, Daigle was the Minnesota's leading scorer in 2003-04 with 20 goals and 31 assists in 78 games.
"This wasn't the same player we all saw come out of the junior hockey with tons of talent," Blues GM Larry Pleau said recently. "It also wasn't the same guy who was struggling to hang on in the NHL after failing with five teams."
Pleau meant that despite stories about this guy or that guy and how he never should have been such a high pick, Daigle's return to the game with a modicum of success should not come as a complete surprise.
"To me, the biggest thing in scouting now is impatience," Pleau continued. "In many situations, we push players into the NHL before they are ready. In others, we simply can't wait if a player doesn't produce right away. But the bottom line is that the record still shows that most players our scouts say are among the top 15 picks in the draft -- like Daigle was -- show those skills somewhere, sometime."
Now at 30, Daigle is in the second season of a comeback from a life away from hockey. Though he didn't have a goal in his first eight games, Alexandre had a goal and seven assists in helping the Wild to a 6-4-2 start this season.
And that reputation as a poster boy for disappointment? Well, let's just say, Daigle is working on that, OK?
"I was too young to handle all they threw at me at 17 or 18," Daigle said, looking squarely into my eyes. "I did some stupid things. I should have known better."
Daigle on his 1993 first overall selection by the Senators
"Do I regret going No. 1? No. Not at all. The path ... for me ... would have probably been easier if I was 11th, 12th or 20th. The expectations were impossible. No. 1 picks are supposed to score 500 NHL goals. And No. 1 picks from Montreal are supposed to be like Mario Lemieux."
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Like posing as a matador, a Roman gladiator and in a nurse's outfit for hockey ads to take advantage of his celebrity in Ottawa. Clearly, the fast lane was too fast for Daigle, who signed an unprecedented entry-level five-year, $12.5 million contract with the Senators.
Now, Daigle would like to forget much, but not all, of those first few years in the NHL.
"Do I regret going No. 1? No. Not at all," he said. "The path ... for me ... would have probably been easier if I was 11th, 12th or 20th. The expectations were impossible. No. 1 picks are supposed to score 500 NHL goals. And No. 1 picks from Montreal are supposed to be like Mario Lemieux. I didn't come close to that ... and won't ... but I'm alright with that now."
To his credit, there was no finger-pointing by Daigle at anyone except himself.
"There were misconceptions, lots of them," he said. "Like I didn't care. I did care."
Clearly, the time off from the game was necessary for Alexandre.
"I was really tired of hockey," he recalled. "It was hockey all the time since I was a teen-ager. Watching the Kings when I was living in L.A., I started to wonder what I was going to do with the rest of my life.
"I didn't think I was that bad in Ottawa. I had 20 goals as a rookie and 26 a couple of years later. In my first year back, I was 27-years-old and I was at a point in my life when I could either give it another try ... or quit for good. That's when I decided to give it one more try."
The tryout in Pittsburgh and subsequent time in the minors wasn't a wakeup call. It was a sign of better things in Daigle's life.
"He didn't have confidence in all of that talent earlier in his career," said Wild Coach Jacques Lemaire. "I saw a lot of young phenoms come into Montreal and fizzle out. I told Alex this might be his last chance and all I wanted from him was a commitment to hard work and discipline.
"Occasionally ... his old habits come back. But I think he's grown up and become accountable ... to himself ... and his teammates."
Ottawa, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, N.Y. Rangers and Pittsburgh are now just part of the long learning curve that has become Alexandre Daigle's life before docking in the Land of 1,000 Lakes.
He's no longer the cult figure he was at 17, but that's OK with him.
"I realize it's not exactly the career I expected to have," Daigle admitted. "But hockey has always been something I'm pretty good at and now I've regained that part of my life."
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