Potential Canes try college first

RALEIGH -- There are different paths to an NHL roster.

In Canada, most hockey players hopeful of making their way to the pros opt for a junior league.

But three of the Carolina Hurricanes top prospects -- forward Zac Dalpe and defensemen Jamie McBain and Brian Dumoulin -- are going a different route. To college.

Dalpe, 19, of Paris, Ontario, chose Ohio State after the Hurricanes drafted him in the second round last year. The Hurricanes had wanted him to go to the Plymouth Whalers of the Ontario Hockey League.

But the Hurricanes are OK with his decision.

"I think, at that age, the player's decision has to solely be the player's and not the organization's," said Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford, who doesn't favor any one route the NHL. "They're in such an important time of their life from a development point of view."

Rutherford approaches the issue on a case-by-case basis. Just a few years ago, the Hurricanes wanted defenseman Jack Johnson to go to a junior league because he was much further along at the time. Johnson, now with the Los Angeles Kings, chose to stay at the University of Michigan and wound up burning his bridges with the Hurricanes.

"He had a chance to get his name on the [2006] Stanley Cup," Rutherford said. "I had a difference of opinion at that point of time."

With Dalpe, Rutherford knew he would get the development he needed, regardless of which route he took. Dalpe, a late bloomer, really wanted to work on developing physically.

"Once you weigh out the pros and cons, at the end of the day, [in college] you're playing against 23- and 24-year-old men," Dalpe said during the Canes' prospect camp last week.

Sometimes, though, if a player isn't ready to face players of that size, he can be benched and that can set him back, Rutherford said.

"He knew he wasn't going to sit," Rutherford said of Dalpe, who added 16 pounds to his 6-foot-1 frame and thrived at Ohio State last season. He is in the running for one of the school's captain positions next season, when he'll be a sophomore.

"You're able to drive the net with 10 extra pounds," Ohio State coach John Markell said.

If Dalpe had chosen the junior league, he would be playing many more games every season, but against younger, smaller players, and he would have far less time to put on muscle in the weight room, Markell said.

But with the Plymouth Whalers, who also are owned by Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos, Carolina would have been able to keep a closer eye and direct his development.

Regardless, Rutherford said he is pleased by Dalpe's progress at Ohio State.

If the Hurricanes' scouting staff likes a player, the path he chooses won't matter, Rutherford said.

That is illustrated by Dumoulin, 17, and McBain, 21, players bound for college before they were drafted by the Canes.

Dumoulin, a Biddeford, Maine, native, said publicly before this year's draft that he wanted the college experience. He is headed to Boston College.

"Everything felt right for me, from the coaches to the academics to the fact that they won the national championship," Dumoulin said. "It was definitely an easy decision to make."

The Hurricanes took him in the second round of this year's draft.

At the University of Wisconsin, McBain, who was drafted in 2006, grew into one of the top college players in the country.

McBain of Edina, Minn., has no regrets.

"College was kind of the way I was brought up," said McBain, reached by phone in Minnesota, where he has been training this summer.

McBain now must acclimate to the professional game, which is much more demanding than the two games a week, on average, he played in college.

He played in 10 games with the Hurricanes' AHL affiliate, the Albany River Rats, at the end of last season.

"It was definitely good to get involved a little bit and get your feet wet," McBain said.

No matter where a player is coming from, even moving up to the AHL takes some adjusting, Rutherford said, something junior league players sometimes take for granted.

"They don't think the league is as good as it is," he said. "The AHL is a very tough league to play in. There's an adjustment regardless of where you come from."