HE IS 32 now, healthy, unencumbered by a contract to scare teams away.
Rick DiPietro is looking forward to the first day of the rest of his NHL life.
“Rick is in a mentally good place where he’s looking for the opportunity to play hockey and prove that he can play at a high level,” Ian Pulver, DiPietro’s agent, told Slap Shots on Thursday. “He’s up for the challenge.”
The chance to meet that challenge has been given to DiPietro by the Hurricanes, whose No. 1 netminder, Cam Ward, is lost for up to a month with a lower body issue, and whose organizational depth in net is negligible.
DiPietro, as reported by The Post on Twitter, has accepted a Professional Try Out from Carolina’s AHL Charlotte affiliate.
There is no need to catalogue the series of misfortunes that struck the star-crossed goaltender across his dozen years in the Islanders organization, during which he made a small fortune thanks to the largesse of owner Charles Wang.
Everyone knows them by heart, no crib sheet necessary. The string of injuries, the personal relationship with the owner that seemed at times to influence personnel decisions that should have been left to the coach (through no fault of the goaltender) and the 15-year contract combined to turn DiPietro into a caricature of himself.
But that is history, as is his relationship with the Islanders organization that assigned him to the AHL Sound Tigers last season before making him an amnesty buyout in June.
DiPietro is of sound mind and body after a week on the ice following an offseason during which he concentrated on a rigorous, off-ice conditioning program before spending last week on the ice with the Boston University Terriers.
“Rick worked extremely hard over the summer to strengthen different parts of his body that he knew he needed to address,” Pulver said. “That was the focus, to make sure he’d be in the best physical shape of his career.
“He has accomplished that objective. … Now, definitely, Rick is ready. He is a very, very committed athlete. He’s worked very hard and he’s very aware of everything around him.”
The phone, as Pulver volunteered, did not ring in conjunction with the July 5 opening of the free agent market. There had been an absence of offers from NHL clubs until Carolina GM Jim Rutherford expressed interest within the last couple of days. Then, again, none was solicited.
“Rick wanted to take care of the off-ice first, so he intentionally kept a low profile over the summer,” Pulver said. “We haven’t had a timetable.
The opportunity to work his way back to the NHL and erase all of the jokes about him will come from Carolina. One could only imagine the scenario had the Rangers inquired following Martin Biron’s retirement.
“I wouldn’t speak to any specific team, but he would consider any offer that would give him a chance to play and compete for a job,” Pulver said before his client accepted the Hurricanes’ invite.
“Rick is getting ready to roll.”
Commissioner Gary Bettman’s opinion upholding the 10-game suspension assessed Patrick Kaleta for his head shot against Jack Johnson, in which the commissioner cites and quotes liberally from the NHLPA’s appeal of the sentence may prove a tipping point in the way the union responds in such matters.
Because if dues-paying members of the PA read the decision, they’d have to come to the conclusion the league is more invested in player safety than the union, which seems more invested in protecting an individual player’s paycheck and in assigning the blame to the victim.
There is, according to several disparate sources within the industry, widespread unease within the union over this course of events. Indeed, this is likely to become Topic A on the agenda during PA executive director Don Fehr’s annual fall tour of the league.
The defense and appeal, first denied by Bettman, may now be taken to an independent arbitrator if Kaleta and the PA should so decide. It’s filled with ludicrous contentions that, quite frankly, are insulting to the overwhelming majority of NHL players who want to rid their game of serial predatory headhunters.
At the initial hearing, Kaleta’s representation claimed the recidivist Buffalo winger had never injured an opponent, including Johnson. That must come as news to Paul Mara, who sustained facial fractures from a high hit in Buffalo on Feb. 23, 2008 for which Kaleta was neither penalized nor suspended.
And it sure must have come as news to Paul Kariya , who was concussed on a blindside elbow to the head from Kaleta in a match at St. Louis on Dec. 27, 2009, a play for which the Sabre was somehow also not suspended.The moment the NHLPA was able to introduce independent arbitration into the supplementary discipline procedure (for suspensions of six games or more) in the latest collective bargaining agreement became the moment that guaranteed transparency in the process and the moment that handed Bettman the public forum he requires.
It was an elbow and concussion that significantly contributed to Kariya being forced to retire at the end of that season after he was not able to get medical clearance to continue.
The NHLPA has an obligation to represent all defendants. But who represents the victims here? Who represented Rick Nash on the Brad Stuart phone hearing? The NHL, apparently.
Maybe Bettman’s decision is part of a larger legal strategy to indemnify the league as much as possible against future claims through potential litigation on the matter of brain injuries. That’s immaterial.
The fact is the Kaleta case has shined a light on the process that has exposed deep flaws within the union’s approach and deep concern over it within the rank-and-file.
It could be a game-changer.