Every player who has ever made the NHL remembers “the call.”
It’s the moment he receives word that he has been chosen to join a big-league club.
Ashton Sautner got “the call” shortly after Christmas, and although his stint with the Vancouver Canucks ended four days later without ice time, it’s an experience he will always cherish.
“We had a game in Utica at 3 o’clock against the Syracuse Crunch,” noted Sautner, a Creighton native, referring to his Dec. 27 schedule with the AHL’s Utica Comets. “So I just went to the rink like a normal game day. I was sitting in the lounge having a cup of coffee and our head coach, Travis Green, called me into the office.”
Brandishing a smile, Green informed the 21-year-old blueliner that Utica’s parent club had been in touch. The Canucks required his services.
The chances of any one hockey player reaching this point in his career are mindbogglingly remote.
According to the sports website SB Nation, 1.64 million people around the world played organized hockey as of 2013; in a given year, somewhere around 1,080 of them will grace the NHL.
As an undrafted player, Sautner seemed to face especially long odds given that the vast majority of NHLers were drafted.
He had been overlooked in the NHL draft when he was eligible, so in 2014-15, his fourth and final season with the WHL’s Edmonton Oil Kings, he set a goal to secure an NHL contract.
Sautner did just that in March 2015 when the Canucks signed him to a three-year entry-level deal worth $67,500 a year if he played in the minors and an average of $675,000 if he reached Vancouver.
While Sautner had now received the call-up from Utica, there was no assurance he would get ice time, or even bench time.
He seemed pragmatic about the promotion, noting that the Canucks were riddled with injuries. As the seventh defenceman on the roster, he was asked to be ready if needed.
Sautner drove the hour or so from Utica to Syracuse, another city in New York State, to board a flight for Vancouver some 3,600 km to the west. He was to report to the Canucks the following morning.
“When you’re getting called up to the NHL, all that travel is definitely worth it,” he said.
After arriving in BC that night, Sautner slept as best he could under the circumstances.
“Obviously I was very excited and anxious to get to the rink and be a part of all of that,” he said.
The next day, Sautner took part in practice and the Canucks’ game-day and pre-game skates. He was handed a No. 59 jersey, the same digits he had worn at the team’s development camp in the summer.
“That was my first NHL warm-up, so that was pretty cool,” he said, referring to the pre-game skate. “It was a great experience and obviously something that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
“Vancouver has a lot of guys that have been around for a while, and guys that I’ve watched on TV, and they’ve had some deep playoff runs and that’s exciting to watch, too. [To be] out there on the ice with them is a dream come true, and I [was] just trying to soak it all in.”
After the warm-up, Sautner was told he would not play against the Kings. He then went for a workout in the team gym and watched that night’s game in the players’ lounge.
From there, he adopted a can’t-go-wrong approach of working hard and waiting for his chance, should it come.
Would he dress the following Friday, when Vancouver hosted the Anaheim Ducks? At some point beyond that? Sautner accepted that it would be up to the coaching staff to decide.
As it turned out, ice time was not in the cards. On New Year’s Eve, the day before the game against Anaheim, Sautner was sent down to Utica. He was back in the lineup for a Jan. 2 game against the St. John’s IceCaps.
While the Canucks were struggling with injuries when they summoned him, it’s not as though they plucked him from obscurity. At 6-ft 1-in and 195 lbs, he is a well-regarded defenceman in the AHL.
As the Hockey’s Future website puts it: “Sautner possesses good hockey sense. He moves the puck well for a player of decent size, and seems to have a good two-way game. He could stand to work on his defensive game a bit more and for the most part doesn’t have one area of his game that truly stands out, but has no major deficiencies either.”
While a “decent prospect,” Hockey’s Future urges “reasonable” expectations for Sautner, saying the ECHL “should be a realistic starting point to his pro career, with time in Utica if merited.”
He has shown that he merits being in Utica, the superior of Vancouver’s farm teams. The question going forward is whether he will take that next step.
“Could have an NHL career one day,” concludes the Hockey’s Future assessment.
After being summoned to Vancouver fewer than 20 games into his pro career in the AHL, “the call” may well come again for Sautner.
He’s doing everything he can to make sure that happens. In the meantime, he’ll keep working hard and staying focused.
Those are the hallmarks of his play – and of Ashton Sautner himself.
