Hockey's Future - The #1 Online Prospects Resource

Winning has a way of making people forget about the bad.

As Patrick O’Sullivan stood on the blue line in Helsinki, Finland on January 5th, 2004, a gold medal strung around his neck, it’s hard to imagine he was thinking about much else besides the momentous win his team had just orchestrated. But O’Sullivan, the hero of the game for the Americans with two third period goals including the game winner, has had more than his share of the bad through his 19 years. So much so that the victory in the 2004 World Junior Tournament and another stellar season with the Mississauga Ice Dogs of the OHL has only begun to erase a difficult past both on and off the ice.

O’Sullivan went public with his family troubles a year ago. Specifically, that his father John abused him for much of his life both physically and verbally, culminating with a beating on the front yard of his grandparents’ house a few years ago. This led O’Sullivan to seek and get a restraining order against his father that keeps the elder O’Sullivan at least one kilometer away from his son, as well as out of all arenas in Canada in which he may play.

At the draft on June 25, the arena assigned additional security to the Winston Salem, NC native and his family for fear that John O’Sullivan would create a problem with his attendance. O’Sullivan’s sister spotted their father in the Gaylord Entertainment Center early in the first round, somewhere everyone had hoped he wouldn’t come. He was apparently concerned and confused that his son had not been selected until well into the second round, perhaps not realizing that he was a healthy share of the reason for that.

The Minnesota Wild had looked into all of the variables involved in O’Sullivan’s troubles before the draft. Interviewing respected people who had dealt with O’Sullivan, as well as the young center himself, they felt that most of the troubles were not with him and that his character was sound.

They decided that the good far outweighed the bad, especially at 56th, and selected the former CHL and OHL rookie of the year. Wayne Gretzky, Joe Thornton, and 19-year-old Rick Nash, who is currently tied for goal scoring leader in the NHL, share this distinction with O’Sullivan.

There was more that was good about O’Sullivan, too.

He played for the U.S. National Under-17 team in 2000-01, leading the National Team Development Program in scoring, and he played for the 2002 U.S. Under-18 team that won gold at the IIHF championship.

Outside of the problems with his father, the Wild were concerned about clashes with coach Steve Ludzik in the 2002-03 season with the Ice Dogs. It had led to punishment from the coach which included being sent home for several weeks. Although he hasn’t completely left his on ice troubles of last year behind, he’s matured since being drafted and has avoided coach Greg Gilbert’s dog house for the most part. One gaffe earlier in the year resulted in he and two other Ice Dogs players being suspended for two games by the team, but he took ownership of his actions and made no excuses or complaints about it.

After two seasons as leading scorer with the Ice Dogs he’s already the franchise all time scoring leader, while this 2003-04 season’s bounty of points is serving to cement his name in the record books of the young organization; a season in which he is eighth in scoring in the league despite missing time for the WJC and a shoulder injury in January. That puts him among league leaders for points per game.

He’s been the OHL player of the week twice so far this season, both in December, and he was named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team in January.

O’Sullivan is also at or near the top three in nearly every goal-scoring category. He’s tied for second in the league in goals, only four behind leader Corey Locke who has played eleven more games, third in power play goals, tied for second in short handed goals, tied for fourth in game winning goals, tied for first in scoring the first goal of a game.

And then there were the goals at the 2003-04 World Junior Championships in Finland. He had been having what even he considered an unproductive tournament up to the finals with just one goal in total through five games, but in the gold medal game against Canada he did what all great hockey players do: play big in big games. He had a nice third period goal, somehow finding just enough space for the puck on a speedy shot over Fleury’s shoulder which brought the Americans to within one goal. Then, later in the third, the now infamous play by Marc-Andre Fleury who hesitated before coming out to play a loose puck in front of a streaking O’Sullivan, banking it off Braydon Coburn and into the Canadian net.

The consensus on that goal was that it was something of a fluke, but O’Sullivan’s speed on the play produced the opportunity. And fluke or not, he came up huge for the Americans in the biggest game of his career thus far. Doug Risebrough and the rest of the Wild must be very pleased.

When he returned to Mississauga, the fans there showed that they were Canadians before Ice Dog followers and, stung by O’Sullivan’s strong play in the WJC, booed him in his first game back.

This despite the fact that his arrival with the Ice Dogs two seasons ago has helped lift the team out of their indefinite cellar obscurity. The franchise’s first playoff appearance was in 2003 (O’Sullivan is tied for the franchise lead in playoff points with 11 in the five games the team played last season before bowing out), and already the Ice Dogs have set franchise records in this 2003-04 regular season for wins with 31, eight more than the previous high of 23, and there are still nine games left to play in the regular season.

He’s had no problem scoring in his time with the Ice Dogs, but this season he has begun to give more attention to his defensive game, and off the ice he has sounded more and more like a team leader.

Despite being sent home early from the Wild’s 2003-04 training camp, O’Sullivan had a positive experience which was capped with a one on one conversation with coach Jacques Lemaire who commended him for his skills, but laid the ground work with O’Sullivan to be a defensively responsible player who also happens to be a gifted scorer. That might temper excitement for fantasy hockey GMs everywhere, but Lemaire’s approach may lay the foundation for O’Sullivan to get more minutes when he eventually cracks the Wild lineup. And that’s never a bad thing.

The Wild drafted him because they saw a player with strong stick handling and speed with an excellent shot that might even remind some of Mike Bossy’s quick release and accurate placement when he reaches the NHL. He’s also able to parlay his speed and skills into good penalty-killing ability, and if a chance to pot one while shorthanded presents itself, he can make the opposition pay. It’s not all rosy, however, as there are still areas that O’Sullivan needs to work on including his playmaking, something he has not yet excelled at to a level that would be acceptable for a first line forward in the NHL. He also suffers from occasional defensive zone lapses that seem to mostly be due to watching the puck and looking for an interception rather than keeping track of his man. O’Sullivan tends to seem disinterested in many games, sometimes floating lazily around the ice until an opportunity to impact the match presents itself to him. However, the bigger the situation, the better he plays.

Central Scouting had ranked the 6’, 180 lb. O’Sullivan fourteenth for draft eligible skaters. As one draftee after another was called, O’Sullivan and his supporters were increasingly shocked. Just as shocked was the Wild who found O’Sullivan still available in round 56, and snapped him up without hesitation.

Having all of the other teams in the league pass him by has perhaps given him the motivation to prove the rest of the league wrong. He’s skilled, makes good decisions, creates and capitalizes on chances, and now he has just enough of a chip on his shoulder to urge him on when he reaches the NHL. It seems quite possible that O’Sullivan will be a top 60 forward in the league within five years, perhaps even sooner. All he does is score goals, big goals, and there’s always a place in the NHL for a player that can do that.

Those boos O’Sullivan received when he returned from the World Juniors for his first game back in Mississauga in January were not something that could rattle the young star. He’s taken it and many of the bigger bumps along the way in stride, and the focus of the fans has quickly returned to the fantastic season that O’Sullivan and the Ice Dogs are having. If he continues to do well and the team keeps winning, maybe even taking their first playoff series, the fans won’t find it too difficult to forget completely about the 2003-04 World Juniors.

Winning has a way of doing that to people.