ASU hockey freshman goaltender Joey Daccord was sitting on his back porch in 2015 after a golf outing with a close friend.
He said he needed to take his mind off of an annual event that was going on that day: the NHL Draft.
“I couldn’t really watch. I was actually sitting outside on my deck,” Daccord said. “My parents were inside watching it on TV. When my dad got that phone call I came inside, like, ‘What’s going on? What’s going on?’”
The phone call was from the general manager of the Ottawa Senators, who just selected Daccord in the seventh round.
“And I just remember my mom was just so thrilled,” he said. “I think I hugged her and picked her up and was just carrying her around the house. It was pretty cool, a pretty unique moment.”
Now, the Senators have Daccord’s negotiating rights (as an NCAA athlete, he can’t sign a professional contract until he leaves college). In the meantime, the Massachusetts native can develop his game, a process that began as soon as he was drafted.
“I got drafted on a Saturday, and that Monday morning, I was on a plane to Ottawa,” he said.
Daccord was summoned to the Senators’ prospect development camp, a multi-day learning experience that each NHL team hosts for its prospects each year. He said there were training sessions both on and off the ice, introductions with team personnel and teammates, and “fun activities.”
But he isn’t the only Sun Devil to be selected in the draft. His teammates, junior forward Wade Murphy and graduate forward Robbie Baillargeon, know the NHL selection process.
Baillargeon, like Daccord, was picked by the Senators.
Unlike his teammates, Baillargeon was invited to the NHL Scouting Combine ahead of his draft in 2012, where he said he met with 10-15 NHL teams.
“The first couple of days were just meetings throughout the whole day,” he said. “I think Saturday was the day. I’ll call it the day (laughs). It started in the afternoon, and we had about two or three hours of medical testing.”
After the medical testing, he said, GMs, coaches and scouts followed him throughout the room as he did bench presses, pull-ups, the long jump, bicycle exercises and more. He said, “people were screaming.”
“I had a pretty good feeling I was going to get my name called, so I ended up going out (to the draft).”
Baillargeon and his family made a vacation out of attending that year’s draft in Pittsburgh along with his teammate from the USHL, Jon Gillies. They were in the seats at the Penguins’ arena when Baillargeon’s name was announced.
“It was a great feeling, just hearing your name called and walking down, putting on that jersey, putting on that hat,” he said. “After that, it was like a whirlwind. You’re doing interviews, talking to people, a bunch of texts. It was probably one of the best feelings of my life.
“To be drafted into the NHL was a dream come true, obviously, for a lot of people. But that’s where the work begins. You do a lot of work to get there. Now, another set of work again.”
Murphy’s story from his 2013 draft day is perhaps the most casual of the trio. He said he didn’t expect to be drafted and was merely watching TV as the NHL Draft was displayed on his computer.
It was the Nashville Predators’ turn to pick.
“When the 7th round came, I didn't think it was going to happen,” he said. “Then all of a sudden, I refresh my computer and I saw at the top of the screen, ‘Wade Murphy.’ I was obviously pretty excited. My phone was blowing up right away. I got a call from my family advisor, my coach, their GM David Poile and my dad, so it was a pretty special day for me.”
. @PredsNHL select Wade Murphy 185th overall. #PredsDraft
— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) July 1, 2013
Player development coaches from NHL organizations keep tabs on their prospects, including the three at ASU.
Murphy said the Predators’ player development coach, Scott Nichol, regularly checks in.
“I talk to him probably once every two months, see how it’s going, see how I’m doing. He gives me advice, I take it.
“He sees me play every once in a while. That’s basically his job, is to travel around to the different players that they drafted and talk to them after the game – what they did wrong, what they did well, how is school, what you’re doing off-ice, so it’s basically your whole life.”
Of course, players for Sun Devil hockey have a common goal: help the team win. But Daccord, Baillargeon and Murphy could all potentially earn entry-level professional contracts with their NHL clubs if they play well for ASU.
Professional contract or not, they can all reflect on the momentous day they were selected.
As Daccord said, “At the end of the day, you can’t really predict the draft. It’s kind of just a chaotic event. Some days it works out and some days it doesn’t, and it just happened to work out for me.”
Reach the reporter at matthew.layman@asu.edu or follow @Mattjlayman on Twitter.
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