DOWNING MAKING AN IMPACT IN RETURN FROM INJURY

Nov 16, 2015

By Tom Witosky | Follow @toskyAHLWild

Grayson Downing took as much pride last Sunday in taking a puck in the face as scoring his first regular season professional goal the night before.

“I like things gritty,” the 23-year-old Iowa Wild center said with a smile as his slightly-cut right cheek grew more black and blue by the moment. “If you aren’t banged up after a game, you didn’t do enough.”

Downing’s 2015-16 season debut last weekend came at an important moment for the Wild, which has been hit hard with injuries to its centers since the start of the season. Downing missed nearly the entire first month of the season with a lower body injury sustained in the third game of the NHL prospects tournament in Traverse City in September;  Zac Dalpe, who played 21 games last season for Buffalo, is lost for the bulk of the season have injured his hip in the Wild’s first game of the season.

Add to that the elevation of two-year Iowa veteran Tyler Graovac to Minnesota and Iowa has had another tough beginning to a season.

“You can’t get a break sometimes,” John Torchetti, the Wild’s head coach, said. “You lose a Dalpe or a Graovac, that leads to a lot of lost puck possession and loss of size.”

For Downing, missing Iowa’s first 12 games was a major frustration.

“It’s a struggle. Every day you want to be out there helping the team, but you can’t.  But when you do get back, it’s nice especially in that first game,” he said.

At the same time, Downing said his time recovering from the injury had a “sobering effect” on him. He spent much of his time with Minnesota as he recovered. Each day he observed why the Wild has become one of the more successful club’s in the NHL.

“When you see up close the work ethic of the guys who are there and see how hard they work, it becomes pretty obvious why they win,” he said. “Everyone is doing what they need to do and they are all buying in.”

Downing said that kind of hard work is what attracted him to sign an entry level contract with the club in the first place.

“I like to get gritty and battle and do the little things. Watching the Wild, it is like that every game.  It is not an easy game when you play the Wild. You hear often how tough they are to play against,” he said.

Much of that grittiness comes from his desire to play hockey – an obsession from an early age.

 “My parents tell me stories of when I was young,” he said. “I always had a hockey stick in my hands in the house. For me it was always about playing hockey.”

Downing also spent hours watching hockey particularly the brawling rivalry of the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche. “I’d go back and watch them all over again. Whenever they are on, I watch them,” he said.

After three seasons in British Columbia’s Junior A hockey league, Downing took a scholarship offer to play at the University of New Hampshire where he was one of the team’s leading scorers all four seasons. He finished his collegiate career for with 56 goals and 56 assists in 134 games while majoring in communications.

Moving up the AHL also has been instructive because it is such a good league, Downing said.

“You are playing against guys who have played in the NHL and who are going to play in, so clearly it is tougher,” he said. “There is a learning curve that you have to accept and you have to keep an even keel when things go well and not so well.”

Torchetti said last Sunday that Downing’s potential to help Iowa was evident throughout his first two games. The goal and the assist from last weekend was just an early example, he said.

“He makes good decisions,” Torchetti said. “He holds onto the puck well and is not worried about where it is going to go. He reads the play pretty good and he plays a good balanced game both ways.”

But Torchetti said that much more will be expected from Downing as well as new centers Kellen Lain and Andy Yogan.   “I want to seem more out of our centers because that’s how we will win games,” he said.

Downing is more than willing to accept the challenge.

“Anytime you are strong up the middle, it helps the team because that is where things start from,” he said  “It is in the defensive zone, neutral zone, in the offensive zone. I am here to contribute to the best of my ability.”

That also means taking a puck or stick in face from time to time, he said.

“I got a nice little shiner, but no stiches,” he said of his injury. “I am definitely going to have a black eye for a few days, but I’ll play with it. It’s fine.”