Munching on a pair of donuts Saturday morning following a late night of drinking beer and playing Xbox into the quiet hours of the morning with friends, Nick Miglio considered the possibility that this was it.
Here he was. Unemployed. Again.
Cut for the second time in little more than a month, his third job in roughly 150 days. Now his fifth former team in a three-year professional career. A life not uncommon to journeyman hockey players, and one usually short-lived.
“It’s not a good feeling. I was figuring out what I wanted to do,” he says, sporting a brand new red Colorado Eagles t-shirt. “If I wanted to go back to the SPHL where I started this year and I was debating on whether to go home or start calling teams.
“I wasn’t really planning on getting a call. I was just taking a couple of days to do whatever.”
Miglio’s phone buzzed as he rode to the mall with an old billet family he’d been staying with in Kansas City before the Mavericks cut him loose after just 11 games (and one point). The voice on the line was nearly as desperate as Miglio.
Four hours and 270 miles south in Tulsa, Okla. Colorado head coach Aaron Schneekloth found his dressing room shrinking seemingly by the minute. Injuries had already begun taking their toll on the Eagles roster, forcing them to play short-benched in the middle of a seven-game road trip spanning two weeks. Their longest of the season.
Schneekloth lost another player he couldn’t afford to when Austrian native Emil Romig couldn’t resist the call of home, departing to Europe and his hometown club in Vienna. Calls around to coaches around the ECHL sifted out a name. Somebody close. Someone available. And most importantly, somebody mobile.
Nick Miglio
“They said they wanted me there in Tulsa for the game that night. I had to leave right away,” Miglio said, his mall trip cut short. “We had to turn around, I had to pack my stuff real quick, get in the car and speed down there.”
The only detour was at a Subway for lunch. “There was nothing. I was driving through the country. So the first thing I saw, I stopped and got.”
Miglio showed up at 4:45 p.m., exactly as the Eagles rolled in.
“I wasn’t worried about not getting much sleep or my diet,” he said. “I knew I’d be running on adrenaline.”
Some paperwork, a quick physical and he was the newest member of a club quickly becoming unrecognizable.
“Yeah, that was a curveball,” Schneekloth chuckles after Tuesday’s practice. “You can’t control call-ups, can’t control injuries. At this time of the year, you just have to do what you can to bring guys in to help your team win. This isn’t the first time this has happened to our team or a team at this level. We’ve got to find a way to get through it.”
Ryan Olsen was exhausted. Mentally and physically.
Travelling 5,421 miles from the Czech Republic to Boise, Idaho takes roughly 20 hours depending on layovers. You could drive the entire length of Interstate-80 over that distance. Twice. Toss in an eight-hour time difference and it’s not hard to imagine Olsen’s pain.
“I didn’t even know where I was pretty much,” he admits.
So you’ll have to forgive him if Olsen’s opening performance for the Eagles was lackluster with no points and a minus-1 rating after coming to the club via a four-player trade with the Utah Grizzlies Feb. 15.
The toll of Olsen’s choice this season to chase greener pastures had also caught up to him.
“My mindset wasn’t exactly to be in the ECHL for that long, so I decided to go somewhere else,” Olsen said. “I chased the money in Europe, and that didn’t work out and so here I am.”
Colorado is happy to have him. Olsen exploded for goals in three straight games following his opener (and four in five) and posted seven points in six games centering a line with Michael Joly and Joey Ratelle.
His goal total is already half that of the player dealt for him (Jake Marchment) and his combination of size and speed could prove valuable as the Eagles make a championship run.
The sixth-round NHL draft pick has nearly 200 games of AHL experience at just 23-years-old and has fit right in with the existing roster. Even if the ECHL isn’t exactly his ideal landing spot.
“It was tough (the decision to return to the ECHL), because you never want to go backward. For me, especially. I love hockey, I’m really passionate about it,” he said. “It’s nothing against the ECHL, it’s a great league still, but I just have to work hard. I’m really finding my game right now. It’s something I wish I had in the AHL, but now I’m finally finding my game and it feels really good. I can still work my way and chase the dream.”
With defenseman Collin Bowman out until the end of the season or early playoffs at best with a lower-body injury and the always looming threat of AHL call-ups (such as goalie Joe Cannata and forward Brady Shaw, recalled to San Antonio on Tuesday), the Eagles need all the help they can get.
Captain Matt Garbowsky and forward Jesse Mychan will both return this week after missing six weeks with injuries to offer more aid, but the blue line is so thin forward Ben Storm will move to defense. Colorado also brought back forward Ryan Siiro, a Princeton hockey product.
Maybe Miglio is only in Colorado out of pure necessity. Perhaps Olsen would prefer to make his name in the AHL. Surely the Eagles would rather have a complete and healthy lineup. None of it matters much now.
Pro hockey is a results-based business. Period.
“We have the capability to win with this lineup,” Schneekloth said. “Is it ideal? No, but we’re going to fight through it.”
Cris Tiller: tillerc@reporter-herald.com or twitter.com/cristiller