There's Something Magical About This Sejna Kid
By Larry Wigge

Instant chemistry.

Sounds magical, doesn't it? Well, it is, sort of ... especially when we pound and pound away at fans about how chemistry can be even more important around the National Hockey League than having the most talented and skilled team in the world.

Chemistry and intangibles often provide the difference between winning and losing in the NHL -- and that often leads to the magic we're talking about.

And what smacks of that magic to St. Louis Blues fans was the way a 23-year-old player named Peter Sejna skated right into the NHL for a one-game glimpse on a Sunday afternoon last April in Denver and accomplished something a lot of long-time NHL veterans have never done -- score a goal against legendary Colorado Avalanche goaltender Patrick Roy.

"That was more than just any old goal," Roy told me during the first round of the playoffs. "That kid was around the net a lot. I saw him play a couple of times on TV when he was at Colorado College. He looks like he's got some great hands -- and it looks like he's got some game."

Sejna's game didn't earn him a draft selection in 1999, when he was playing for Des Moines of the United States Hockey League. In reality, he was considered too small. More important, his league was considered suspect by NHL scouts at the time.

But the Blues nearly drafted him then anyway, before he went on to four years at Colorado College that was culminated by his leading the NCAA in scoring with 36 goals and 46 assists, contributing a point in 41 of his 42 games last season and winning the Hobey Baker Award as college hockey's Player of the Year.

Game? Yes. Plus instant chemistry with fellow Slovak Pavol Demitra, his boyhood idol who set up Sejna for a power-play chance in close that Peter skillfully redirected up over the left shoulder of Roy.

Veteran Scott Mellanby kind of put Sejna's debut into perspective that Sunday in April.

"He didn't look out of place at all," said Mellanby. "I'd say it looks like he's got some great offensive skills. But then he looked good all around and showed a lot of poise for his first NHL game."

Blues Coach Joel Quenneville said he liked Sejna's thought process and the patience he showed on that goal -- from the start.

As you might expect, Sejna's head was in the clouds.

"I still dream about that day. Wow! Patrick Roy ... and a goal in my first NHL game," Sejna said the other day after a training camp scrimmage in which he scored a key goal, on a setup by center Doug Weight, with time running down for the second straight day. "I didn't want to leave the Blues, but I had to go back to college.

"It was really an eye-opening experience for me to see Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic on the ice for Colorado and Pavol Demitra and Keith Tkachuk and all of the Blues sitting across from me in the locker room."

Before camp, Weight was talking about youngsters like Sejna and Worcester-trained John Pohl and how the Blues, with a need for some help on the wing with the departure of Cory Stillman, Martin Rucinsky, Tyson Nash and Shjon Podein (or 50 goals from the left wing last season), could use an injection of youth.

"Well ... now that you mention it ... it would be nice to find a Barret Jackman-type of rookie up front this season," Weight said, "but then I wouldn't want to say that Sejna or Pohl is Moses or anything like that. That would be unfair, wouldn't it?"

Weight's voice trailed off after that question as if to say that maybe, just maybe, all of the hype surrounding Sejna could be true. But then, Doug had never really had a chance to see Peter flash his skills for him on the ice up close and personal like he would when the two played on the same line for the White team in the training camp scrimmage games.

After one day and a goal by Sejna, from Weight -- you could sense a little more excitement in Doug's voice.

"That's a pretty good pace," Weight laughed. "Two games. Two goals."

Then, it was three games and four goals after Sejna scored two more goals to push the White team into the scrimmage championship game on Wednesday. And Thursday, the Weight-Sejna combination combined for the winning goal -- by Weight, assisted by Sejna -- in a 3-0 victory over the Blue team.

Weight wound up leading the tournament with three goals and five assists. Sejna had four goals -- to lead the tournament -- and one assist.

They were scheduled to play again in the Blues first preseason game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday at 4 p.m. at Savvis Center, in a lineup that will be dotted by youngsters.

But there's no young and the restless with the Weight-Sejna combo.

"Do I believe in instant chemistry?" Weight was asked afterward. "Sure I do. I clicked from the first shift in Edmonton when Bill Guerin and I were together. Same with Ryan Smyth. And Cory (Stillman) and Bogie (Eric Boguniecki) and I were pretty good out of the gates last season. But I don't want to get ahead of myself and say that Peter is going to score 40 goals or something like that as a rookie.

"Without making a comparison with Bill Guerin or anyone else I've played with, I thought Peter and I knew pretty much where each other was going to be. Hey, I don't know if we are going to play one game or 200 together, but I liked the first game. It wouldn't be wrong to say that I'm definitely interested and I'm definitely excited about the prospects. He is certainly quick out there and is tremendously skilled."

A big smile erupts on Weight's face. Some might call it a cheshire cat grin.

"What I like about him is the way he sees the ice," Weight said. "You can tell he's an intelligent kid. He asks a lot of questions, like where I want the puck and what I'd like to see him do in certain situations. As the first game together went along, he might come up to me and say, 'My fault.' By the end of the game, we were laughing and talking a lot. Each play he was telling me what he was thinking and wanting to know what I was thinking. You've got to have that kind of communication to make a line work.

"It's not hard to see why he stood out at the college level. What is impressive is that he is eager to do whatever it takes to be his best at this level. You know, I remember something my Dad told me when I was young: Don't get mad at a winger if he doesn't do things the same way as you do. Work with him. He can become your best friend -- and he was right about that."

Weight added that he was surprised at how Americanized, intelligent and curious Sejna was about how things work in the NHL.

While no one is about to pronounce this combination with the magic of a John Stockton-Karl Malone or Steve Young-Jerry Rice or Michael Jordan-Scottie Pippen, there is a feel to the way Weight and Sejna are beginning to think on the ice together.

"It's really great to see, watching the kind of chemistry he and Dougie have struck up so quickly," says Keith Tkachuk. Ô'That kind of chemistry is sometimes hard to find -- and you really need it. Look at Detroit and Colorado and how they've won Stanley Cups with at least two great scoring lines."

"There's something happening on almost every shift with Dougie and Peter out there," adds Quenneville. "Peter's got great creativity with the puck."

Makes you wonder why a player like Sejna went undrafted in 1999.

Too small? Well ... ugh ...

"I don't buy that," Sejna says with a hint of cockiness. "I may be only 5-9 1/2 and I may have grown from about 180-185 in my draft year to 198-200 pounds now, but skill is skill, isn't it?"

Now the rookie is doing the interview, eh?

Perhaps the equations we are presenting in this piece about instant chemistry aren't as difficult to comprehend when you've graduated from Colorado College with a degree in mathematical economics like Sejna has.

I wondered aloud: What does mathematical economics have to do with hockey?

"Nothing," Sejna says, with a laugh. "I've always like math, that's all. And I felt I needed something for after hockey."

Next equation? Can Doug Weight and Sejna make chemistry so that "after hockey" is a long, long time from now?

"Hey, I believe in instant chemistry," says Sejna. "Look at Wayne Gretzky and Jari Kurri. Look at Pavol Demitra and Keith Tkachuk and Scott Mellanby. Look at ..."

OK, Peter, we get the picture.

Chicago Blackhawks G.M. Mike Smith once told me he fully believes you can throw out 50 players on the ice and let them mix amongst themselves and come back in an hour or so and see the best players finding their best match -- free-lancing, ad libbing. "And in an hour or so," he said, "you can see one whale of a game because the best players kind of gravitate toward one another."

I've seen enough cases of instant chemistry to know that Smith is probably right. But it not only takes skilled players to mesh magically, but also players with great hockey sense -- like Weight said so eloquently about how he and Peter see the ice so creatively.

The key point here is that Sejna didn't take this training camp lightly. He spent five weeks in training with the team at Worcester this summer and then went to Vail, Colorado, for another five weeks of skating, conditioning in the high altitude and plyometrics.

"You can see he wants this chance," Blues captain Al MacInnis opined. "He's pretty impressive out there."

He brings a presence that all special players do.

"You can see that Peter really has good natural instincts and vision on the ice that probably comes naturally to him," Coach Joel Quenneville said after just two days of camp. "Peter seemed to get better when the game was on the line. He really has good moves around the net -- and a real quick stick."

Quenneville, who is never one to really gush over a player, might have gotten caught up in the moment, when he was asked about the team's dearth of scoring on the wing and whether he had noticed anyone in camp who might provide the kind of shot that usually results in big goal-scoring production.

"If you haven't seen him in practice, you should watch Peter Sejna," Quenneville said matter-of-factly. "I think he's got one of the great shots in the game. He's got a release where the first time you see it, you say, 'Wow!' His release is quick and the velocity of his shot might surprise you."

It's clear the Blues may have lucked out in getting to Sejna before other teams did and getting him to sign on with them as a free agent. It's also clear they saw something in Peter five years ago that made them nearly draft him and continue to watch him closer than most when he went to Colorado College.

"I've got to give Peter all the credit in the world, he saw that he was going to have you be bigger -- and play bigger than 5-9 1/2," says Blues scout Ted Hampson, who never gave up on his interest in Sejna. "You see certain players who have special qualities and over the years you find yourself kind of drawn back at them -- again and again."

And now Weight is smiling because he may have found himself a special linemate. Sejna is smiling because he is getting that chance at playing in the NHL that he hoped he'd get with the Blues. And Quenneville is smiling -- perhaps even wider.

"Goal scorers seem to have that knack to create great scoring chances for themselves -- and this kid seems to have that knack," Quenneville says. "We look at our team and see how strong we are down the middle with centers like Doug Weight, Pavol Demitra and Petr Cajanek. And we knew we had some openings on the wings, particularly the left side. But our feeling has always been that centers can make good wingers."

Weight says wingers are now a little different from when he broke into the NHL and most of them went up and down their wing.

"Wingers now, they're interchangeable," he says. "Right plays left ... and left plays right. What you are really looking for is some kind of chemistry. You are looking for wingers who can play with anybody, find the openings, but also be disciplined enough to play your team's style or system."

Tkachuk is right when he talks about the Red Wings and they're success beginning with their strength up the middle with players like Sergei Fedorov, Steve Yzerman, Igor Larionov and Kris Maltby -- and more recently Pavol Datsyuk. In Colorado, Joe Sakic has always centered one high-scoring line and Peter Forsberg another.

With the Blues, you pretty well know that Demitra, Tkachuk and Scott Mellanby are going to be tough to handle for all of the Blues opponents -- and having more production from Weight and his wingers can really go a long way to helping the Blues compete or surpass Detroit and Colorado.

"Doug and Peter seem to have already seem to have developed a nice chemistry looking for each other, especially down low around the net," says Quenneville. "We all know plays down low are often bang-bang timing plays, where an understanding, an instant chemistry is necessary."

Instant chemistry? We've already seen some early magic from Weight and Sejna -- and maybe, just maybe, some more magical results for the Blues this season.

Reprinted with permission
St. Louis Blues Website