SYVRET COMFORTABLE IN ROLE WITH IOWA
Jan 27, 2015By Tom Witosky
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After playing in nearly 600 American Hockey League games, Danny Syvret understands something about how a hockey club becomes successful.
“Those teams that have had success are the ones that buy in and accept where they are and want to win,” the veteran Iowa wild defensemen said recently.
The 29-year-old veteran of five NHL teams and has called nine AHL cities home, is now a mainstay on the Iowa Wild’s blue line after signing just days after the AHL season began in October. He is on his second player tryout agreement of the season with the club, but is hoping his veteran leadership and the increased success of the club will turn into something longer term for him in Des Moines.
“I am starving to play for the same team two years in a row,” Syvret said. “Every year it has been playing for a new team, in a new system, for a new coach that I have to earn his trust, new players, new city. After nine years, it begins to wear on you.”
Since joining the Wild, Syvret has worked himself into becoming one of team’s top four defensemen and is averaging around 25 minutes per game. He also is often paired with several of the club’s young players, including defensive phenom Matt Dumba. In the process, Syvret also has scored three goals and has 13 assists in 39 games.
John Torchetti, the Wild’s head coach, said Syvret has become an integral part of on the Wild’s blue line attack and defense.
“Danny is a veteran who knowns he is going to get a lot of ice time and be called upon when our young guys aren’t playing up to par,” Torchetti said. “He makes the plays that are necessary and eats up more minutes than is usual. He gets the job done.”
Possessing a mischievous smile and a penchant for providing good quotes, the red-headed Syvret also recently displayed a remarkable talent – his ability to hit an open net from the 200 level of Wells Fargo Arena. A video of Syvret putting three consecutive shots in the goal from the concourse of the arena went viral on social media last week.
“I’ve always had fun playing around with the puck and trying new things,” Syvret said. “Been doing things like that for years.”
Syvret credits much of his hockey career to getting a strong beginning in junior hockey after he was drafted by the London Knights of the major junior Ontario Hockey League at age 16. Though he sat out his first year under the rules of the league, he then played for one of the best junior teams in Canadian hockey history. During Syvret’s last two seasons, the Knights had a 114-24 regular season record.
“We had a 31-game winning streak that final year,” said Syvret, who was the team’s captain that season. “The first game we lost, there were a bunch of us in training camp for the world juniors.”
That year, Syvret managed not only to be a part of a team that won the Memorial Cup, but also Canada’s national juniors team that won the world juniors tournament in 2005. He also was named the best defensive player in the Ontario league as well as the Canadian Major Junior Defenseman of the Year.
“That year was something,” he said. “But we worked together for several years to build it into something special. We could see by staying together how it was working so well.”
Syvret said that he sees much the same in the Wild organization.
“They are developing their guys pretty well. If the team up there wasn’t as young as it is, we would be better down here,” he said. “If you have a young core that you can keep together, they become the backbone for the organization.”
Drafted by Edmonton in 2005, Syvret has spent most of career in the AHL, but one of his 59 games in the NHL remains a big memory. On Jan. 1, 2010, Syvret scored his first NHL career goal playing for the Philadelphia Flyers in the Winter Classic at Fenway Park in Boston.
Syvert scored by simply throwing a shot on net from near the blue line while Boston Bruins goalie Tim Thomas was knocking Flyers forward Scott Hartnell away from in front of the Bruins goal.
“I actually didn’t see the opening because I was trying to keep the shot low,” Syvret said. “I felt like a ten-year-old. I got so much energy from it I had trouble sleeping for several days.”
Even though he has been in the league for nine years, Syvret said that he has no intention of leaving the game any time soon. He said that he would like to be a part of the effort to helping the Wild’s younger players make it to the NHL, but also help build a winning foundation in Des Moines.
“My role, over the years, is to become be the guy another player can approach to address a situation in which the player wants advice or just a second opinion on something,” he said.
He said that the club is making good strides after a shaky start.
“It would be a great thing for us to start building confidence and experience heading toward making the playoffs,” he said. “Then you can keep that same nucleus for the following season. The teams that are successful right now pretty much have the same roster they had the year before.
Plus, he has another goal – to play on the same team with his brother, Corey, who is now in his third season as a defenseman with the Alaska Aces, one of the Wild’s ECHL affiliates.
“That would be dream come true,” he said.