Looking up from the dinner table, hockey legend Michel Goulet asked: “Were you in Toronto to see Peter Forsberg go in the Hall of Fame?”
“No,” I confessed sheepishly. “Hate to admit it, but I’ve never been to the Hockey Hall of Fame.”
“Well,” Goulet replied with a wry smile as he took note of my receding, gray hairline. “What are you waiting for? The next Avalanche player to be inducted?”
As the 41-year-old Forsberg held a small child in his arms Thursday night and the Pepsi Center crowd saluted the finest honor hockey can bestow upon a player, two questions crossed my mind:
1) Where did all the time go? Foppa is a father? It seems like only yesterday he was a baby-faced young man raising the Stanley Cup for Colorado.
2) Who is the next truly great Avalanche player? Six months ago, Nathan MacKinnon was breathlessly hyped as the next Sidney Crosby. Now he’s a teenager, who much like a struggling Avalanche team, is struggling to live up to his immense potential.
Forsberg won Olympic gold at age 20, the Calder as the league’s top rookie at age 21 and the Stanley Cup at age 22. He was a young phenom, no doubt.
But know what was even more impressive? Forsberg was Peter the Great. But he never got impressed with his achievements, never took his greatness for granted and never dared to dream he was destined for the Hall of Fame.
“I didn’t think about it at all actually. … I never thought I was going to be a good NHL player,” Forsberg insisted.
The first time I saw MacKinnon skate during a regular-season home game, in 2013, his talent was so undeniably electrifying that I guaranteed the long-suffering Avalanche franchise would make the playoffs. Mac- Kinnon was so good so early that outlandish statements seemed safe. And the Avs not only made the playoffs, they won the same Central Division that the Chicago Blackhawks and St. Louis Blues call home.
OK, fast forward to a November night shortly before Thanksgiving in 2014. After 20 games, the Avs bear little resemblance to the team that was the league’s most pleasant surprise of a season ago. And it’s not too early to be concerned; the schedule is nearly 25 percent done and the competition in the brutal Western Conference won’t get any easier.
What’s more, MacKinnon seldom looks like hockey’s next big thing. There’s no polite way to put it: On too many nights, the 19-year-old forward has looked a little soft and a stride slow. The stats don’t lie. After a 3-2 loss to the Washington Capitals, Mac- Kinnon is a minus-eight. That’s not the stuff of a superstar.
So I asked Forsberg: Why wasn’t he spoiled by so much early success on the ice? And what’s the biggest challenge to a young player in trying to convert early accolades into a Hall of Fame career?
The memory of Forsberg went reeling back 20 years, when he was a rookie with the Quebec Nordiques, and the time he was summoned to the office of coach Marc Crawford, fearful he was going to be asked to turn in his NHL sweater.
“I thought Crawford was going to send me down (to the minors) that first year after 12 or 13 games,” Forsberg said. “He called me into the office and said: ‘You better start playing.’ “
MacKinnon is in the NHL to stay. But maybe it’s time for the teen phenom to be given a healthy dose of tough love.
Almost every Hall of Fame player I’ve ever had the chance to know, from Patrick Roy to Michael Jordan to Peyton Manning, has shared one trait: an abnormal, unhealthy obsession channeled in a positive direction that never allows satisfaction with being second best.
“You’re just trying to win everything you possibly can. I was fortunate to be here (in Colorado), there was no other goal in this organization other than to win the Cup,” said Forsberg, who finished his NHL career with 249 goals and 636 assists.
“There’s nothing else we talked about in the room other than: Who do we play tomorrow? How are we going to play? And make sure to go to bed early.”
In winning the Calder as the league’s best rookie, MacKinnon made hockey look easy.
The long skate to the Hall of Fame awaits.
The hard part has only just begun.
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or twitter.com/markkiszla
