Dreams die hard, especially wearing an NHL jersey as the years and stops roll along, but for Drake Caggiula, he’s back in the best league in the world and back with the team he first played for eight years ago before he became a vagabond.
Edmonton, Chicago, Arizona, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Wilkes-Barre, Bakersfield.
An everywhereman, now where he wants to be, again.
Who knows if it’s a long time or a short time, but it’s a fun time.
“For me it’s been a journey of redemption and perseverance,” he said.
“Strange in a sense (being back) … I don’t know how many days it’s been. Five hundred, six hundred days since I played my last (NHL game). I had those first-game jitters again,” said Caggiula, who was dealt from here to the Blackhawks for Brandon Manning Dec. 30, 2018, the day after he assisted on Caleb Jones’s first NHL goal, and in his first game back from the minors, he helped out on Noah Philp’s first NHL point in Nashville Thursday.
That started his odyssey from organization to organization.
A lot of veterans never get back to the NHL once they’re in the minors at 30, but Caggiula never gave up.
“I love the game, I’m competitive in everything I do. A big part of it wants to stick it people who said I couldn’t do it. Even coming out of college (national champion University of North Dakota) as a highly-touted free-agent, I still had a lot of doubters,” said the 5-11, 183-pound Caggiula.
“For me, it’s about proving people wrong, even myself wrong. There’s been times where I lost my confidence and I thought, ‘Hey, I can’t do this.’ But I owe it to myself to give everything I have until the last day of playing.”
Caggiula is clearly a tweener. Too good for the AHL, scrapping to stay on an NHL roster. In Wilkes-Barre, the Penguins’ farm club, he had 53 points in 65 games. If you add in the Bakersfield totals, 95 points in 113 minor-league games.
But moving from team to team in the NHL. Wanted, then unwanted.
Caggiula came to this year’s camp with a different mindset than in 2023.
“I talked to Knobber (Oiler coach Kris Knoblauch) and my wife about it and thought I was playing with house money,” he said. “For me, I have a good life wherever I’m playing ($500,000 to play in the minors, $775,000 in the NHL). That allows me to play free, to play my style of hockey and if the team likes it, great.”
“If they don’t, that’s OK, because I’m comfortable in Bakersfield. It’s allowed me now to play mentally free and the mind’s the most powerful muscle in the world. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that.”
Knoblauch certainly liked his training camp.
“This is a veteran who’s played a number of games in the NHL but not many games the last couple of years … but he’s an NHL-calibre player,” said Knoblauch. “You can insert him into a lineup in a defensive role and he could penalty-kill. He’s just a smart hockey player.”
You get stamped as an AHLer, the more times and teams you play on in the NHL without sticking, however. “Maybe so, but look at (goalie) Calvin Pickard. He was deemed a minor-leaguer but last season he made the most of his opportunity and signed a two-year contract this summer,” said Knoblauch, who will play Pickard Monday when New Jersey is here but will go with Stu Skinner in Calgary Sunday.
“The odds of Drake making our team at camp were hard, but he came with the mindset of putting all out there and made a great impression. The coaching staff appreciated him and we felt if there was an injury or there was time for a call-up, he was on our mind,” said Knoblauch.
His first look was against the Predators.
“I thought I played with a lot of pace, a lot of energy, hard on the forecheck and was pretty responsible defensively. And to stay up here, that’s what I’ve got to do,” said Caggiula, 30, who got no argument from Knoblauch.
“I thought he was around the puck a lot, made some good plays.”
Caggiula, who has played 304 NHL games, surprised everybody by sticking to the last round of cuts in training camp this fall after being sent to Bakersfield fairly early in 2023, the first year of his two-year deal with the Oilers organization. With McDavid’s suspected sprained ankle and looking to change things up on the fourth line, he was recalled along with Philp. He got 14 shifts, 8 1/2 minutes icetime and he killed penalties on the farm, maybe a door to sticking here.
“I’ve worked hard, overcome some adversity with injuries. I broke my hand last year, getting hit by a shot on a power play, shattered my hand, and I tore my MCL,” said Caggiula, who had 37 points in 47 AHL games in Bakersfield, and also was leading the Condors with five in five games when called up.
Caggiula, who went to high-school with McDavid in Ontario, was also drafted in the OHL by Erie as 97 was a few years later. But Caggiula went the college route, playing on a line with Brock Boeser and Nick Schmaltz in his last year when North Dakota won the NCAA championship. Peter Chiarelli signed him in 2016 when about 10 other teams were interested, until he traded him right after Christmas in 2018; in hindsight a swing and a loud miss on Manning.
He played well in the 2017 Oilers playoff against San Jose and Anaheim with three goals, and kept it going the next season, but he was gone after 169 games, including playoffs.
“My rookie year with Oilers I tore my hip flexor last day of camp and missed 10 or 12 weeks, which put me behind the eight ball, brand new league coming out of college but I was playing my game in the playoffs and next year I had 13 goals,” said Caggiula.
“I thought I was figuring out the league. Next season, I had six goals early, then there was a coaching change (Todd McLellan for Ken Hitchcock) and was traded. Then it was about re-establishing myself, then there’s COVID, new organizations. The Oilers, this is like home, my first love,” said Caggiula.
SO WHO’S FIGHTING NEXT?
The Oilers have had a fight in all five of their wins. Is it rock-paper-scissors to see who drops the mitts in Calgary Sunday, or do they draw straws?
“Yeah, 5-and-0. Watch out. We’ll see how long we can keep that stat rolling,” laughed Knoblauch. “It’s a lot of coincidence. Some games though the fights did pick up our team, like in the Philadelphia game,” with Troy Stecher stepping up against the much bigger Sean Couturier.
In Nashville, Ty Emberson had his first NHL scrap, against Cole Smith, then Vasily Podkolzin surprisingly beat Jeremy Lauzon.
“Pods is a big, strong guy but I didn’t know he had that in him. I’m sure the recipient of that jab wasn’t expecting it but I’m sure that will circulate around the league and he’ll get more space. Fighting aside, I’ve been so happy with his game,” said Knoblauch.