VANCOUVER, British Columbia – You get to see plenty of North America when you are a professional hockey player. Justin Brazeau, the newest member of the Minnesota Wild, didn’t know he would be seeing most of it in one day.
Late Thursday, when his former team – the Boston Bruins – had a game in Raleigh, N.C., versus the Carolina Hurricanes, Brazeau was held out, as a trade was in the works. When the Bruins had come to an agreement with Wild general manager Bill Guerin that would bring the hulking winger to the State of Hockey in exchange for Jakub Lauko, Marat Khusnutdinov and a late round draft pick, Minnesota’s team services folks began making hasty arrangements to get Brazeau to Vancouver from the other side of the continent.
With the Bruins in full “fire sale” mode, jettisoning players like Charlie Coyle (to Colorado) and Brad Marchand (to Florida), Brazeau admitted an inkling that he might be switching jersey colors, as well.
“I kind of had a feeling something might be coming in,” said Brazeau, following his Wild debut in a 3-1 loss to the Canucks on Friday night. “Obviously you’re never fully ready for it, but yeah, I kind of had a feeling something was gonna happen the last couple of days, so just trying to be ready for anything, mentally ready for that, and I just kind of go with the flow of it.”
His Friday began at 8 a.m. ET (5 a.m. on the West Coast) with a flight from Raleigh to Denver. After a layover of a few hours where he tried to catch up on all of the trade news to see where his former Bruins teammates were headed, Brazeau flew from Denver to Vancouver, arriving at the team hotel a few hours before they went to Rogers Arena and grabbing some food. He tried to sleep as much as possible on the planes.
On the ice, Brazeau played nine shifts on the team’s fourth line, getting a bit more than seven minutes of ice time. He admitted that adjusting to a new team and a new system, with travel-weary legs, was a challenge. But his new coach liked what was displayed in that small sample size.
“I give him a lot of credit. Obviously emotional for him. He gets traded and he’s got a lot of travel, and came in and showed in,” Wild coach John Hynes said postgame. “I think he’s got good hockey sense, he gets to the net. I like that line in general and brings some good size, brought some physicality to the game. So, it’s nice. I thought under the circumstances that he had, I give him a lot of credit. I thought he showed up to play for our team tonight in a strong way.”
Originally from the lakes country of Ontario, north of Toronto, Brazeau said his only previous relationship on the Wild is veteran forward Marcus Foligno, who is from the same region, and is an occasional guest on a podcast hosted by a few of Brazeau’s friends. But Foligno and all of his new teammates made an effort to welcome the new guy to the Wild.
“The guys are great, welcoming me in when I got here and making me feel really comfortable, so it was good,” he said.
After a long day of travel and a frustrating result on the ice, a welcoming smile and handshake still go a long way.
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