Kalman: Ferraro's Play Inspiring Fatherly Love From Bruins
WILMINGTON (CBS) -- Unless you've been under a rock, you know that Bruins forward Landon Ferraro is the son of former NHL All-Star Ray Ferraro.
As he's proven with his hard work ethic and smarts in his eight games since Boston claimed him on waivers from the Detroit Red Wings, there are a lot of hockey people that would like to claim the younger Ferraro as their son. And right now his hockey dad is Claude Julien.
Julien admitted Friday after practice at Ristuccia Arena that he knew little about Ferraro before general manager Don Sweeney claimed the right-shooting forward. But so far the Julien-Ferraro relationship has gone from blind date to full-blown romance, even if Julien's too shy to admit it.
And the love doesn't just come from Ferraro's three goals and two assists in his eight games in a Bruins sweater. Ferraro's been front and center in helping the Bruins' penalty kill (35 for its last 38) overcome some key injuries and been able to play every position on the Bruins' bottom two lines. With the exception of the Bruins' loss in Calgary on Dec. 4, Ferraro's ice time has increased every game with Boston – capped by a season-high 14:35 in the win at Montreal on Wednesday.
"It's been the way he's played. He seems to have a real good understanding of the game," Julien said. "At this level, everybody has an amount of talent that makes them NHLers. You always look at the little details and that's what separates really the good players from the great players and the weaker players for that matter.
"So I guess it's the trust that a player has to gain from his coach and by his actions, and that's what he's done."
What makes the 24-year-old Ferraro the type of player coach's love is his humility and acceptance of the ways he can help the team within his skillset. He thought a lot about offense in junior hockey, where he was able to once score 37 goals in a season. But after the Red Wings picked him in the second round, 32nd overall, in 2009 he quickly found out he wasn't going to be a 50-goal scorer.
"I go to my first camp and I'm their first pick and I think I'm going to do unreal, play another year of junior and make the team," Ferraro recalled. "Then [Pavel] Datsyuk's on my team in camp and I'm like, 'I'm not a skill guy anymore.' You just look at the things he can and it's nowhere near what my hands can do. So you learn quick and you've got to adjust and that's the guys that make it, the ones that find that out early and adjust."
Ferraro had plenty of time to hone all the other aspects of his game and put some weight on his 6-foot frame. The Red Wings are famous for their patience with their prospects and Ferraro spent four full seasons with their AHL club in Grand Rapids. Even as he was lighting up the AHL for 27 goals last season, Ferraro only got the call for three NHL games in the regular season and then seven in the postseason.
He didn't get frustrated and this season achieved his goal of surviving the final cuts after training camp. The Red Wings, though, still didn't have much room for him in their lineup. When the Red Wings put him up for adoption, the Bruins were more than willing to take him in.
"I mean it's frustrating. You want to play, you want to show that you can and your whole goal is to be in the NHL, not be a top guy in the American League," Ferraro said. "That's not what you set out to do. So you always start worrying, 'Am I going to miss my chance?' There's a lot of guys that probably could've played for a bit but they weren't in the right situation. For me, I was sitting in Detroit and was kind of stuck. There were some younger guys coming in that were real good and they're going to be good players for a long time to come. So it took me getting out and having an opportunity to come in and make the most of it."
Ferraro's made Sweeney's waiver claim seem prescient and set Julien's heart aflutter. The next step for him is to stay in the NHL for the long haul by consistently duplicating his performances from his first eight games with the Bruins.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.