St. Louis showed Lightning he could play despite lack of size

TORONTO --
Martin St. Louis
was close to abandoning his NHL dream and signing with a team in Switzerland before the Tampa Bay Lightning finally got him under contract on July 31, 2000.

"We probably wouldn't have known what we missed if he went to Europe," said former Lightning general manager Rick Dudley, now the senior vice president of hockey operations for the Carolina Hurricanes. "Marty would have become a star there … but nobody, I don't think, would have given him a chance here."
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Dudley did, but only after a series of events transpired over an almost eight-week period leading up to the day St. Louis signed his first contract with the Lightning, a one-year, one-way contract worth the League minimum, $250,000, that included a club option for a second year.
"It seems laughable now, but obviously it worked out," Dudley said.
St. Louis' journey to Tampa Bay, where he began his path to the Hockey Hall of Fame and the induction ceremony Monday, started on June 11, 2000, the day Craig Button officially began work as general manager of the Calgary Flames.
Button, who was coming from the Dallas Stars, where he was the director of player personnel, was hired by Calgary on June 6, but his contract stipulated he couldn't do anything in an official capacity with the Flames until after the Stars' season ended. Dallas played until June 10, when it lost Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final to the New Jersey Devils, leaving Button less than 48 hours to submit Calgary's protected list for the 2000 NHL Expansion Draft. The deadline was June 12.
Button discovered on June 11 that the Flames didn't have a forward under contract who fulfilled the League's experience requirements (at least 40 games played in the 1999-2000 season or 70 played from 1998-2000) that they wanted to expose in the expansion draft.

"So we said we would pick up the option [one year, $525,000] on St. Louis' contract because it had to be a guy with a contract," Button said.
Button said Tom Watt, who was the Flames' development coach, was the only member of Calgary's hockey operations staff who spoke up on behalf of St. Louis and said he felt he could be an NHL player. It wasn't enough to convince him that St. Louis, at 5-foot-8, could play for Calgary.
He wasn't good enough for the Minnesota Wild or the Columbus Blue Jackets either; neither newcomer selected him in the expansion draft. In turn, the Flames, because they didn't believe enough in St. Louis, bought him out for $175,000, one-third of the contract's value.
St. Louis had to pass through waivers before the buyout was official. He did and become an unrestricted free agent.
"Nobody was clamoring for him," Button said.
Dudley soon started talking to St. Louis' agent, Lewis Gross, about a contract. Dudley remembered watching St. Louis play at the University of Vermont and for Cleveland in the International Hockey League. He remembered being impressed, with one caveat.
"The only bad thing about him was his size, and it's vertical size, not his strength, because he was a powerful kid," Dudley said. "It was only how tall he was."
Dudley wanted a big team because size was important to win in the NHL at that time, but he said he was willing to make an exception for St. Louis. He still had to convince his bosses that St. Louis was worth it.
"There were people, and they were somewhat new to hockey, that couldn't believe that a player who was bought out by one organization could actually play for another organization and be of value," Dudley said. "My boss was Tom Wilson, a very bright guy who was the ultimate boss, and Ron Campbell, who was the president. I had to convince both of them that he could play.
"Eventually, Tom said, 'If Rick feels that strongly about it, then we'll do it.'
But the Lightning clearly weren't 100 percent sold. They left St. Louis exposed for the 2000 NHL Waiver Draft. He was not selected.
"Watching the kid, honestly, I never had a doubt that he'd play for us," Dudley said.

Lightning coach Steve Ludzik did. He had St. Louis playing fourth-line minutes to start the 2000-01 season. St. Louis felt he was being underutilized, so he pushed back approximately 20 games into the season, telling Ludzik he was good enough and that he should play more.
"You might not know this, but I want you to know that I can play on your top three lines and help the team," St. Louis said, recalling what he told Ludzik. "It turned out great for me. I felt if I was sinking, I was going down swinging. Very uncomfortable doing it, but glad I did."
St. Louis started playing more in December of the 2000-01 season. Ludzik was fired a month later and replaced by John Tortorella, who also had to buy into St. Louis as a player before he felt comfortable using him in a scoring role, a bigger role.
Tortorella did. St. Louis did the rest.
"We all missed him and we all should be ashamed that we missed him because all the signs were there from what he had accomplished that he should have been given more opportunities, not less," Button said. "There's nothing you can do except acknowledge it. Marty became a good teacher for me. I don't scout with a tape measure anymore."