Foote's Winding Road in the Pros | PROSPECT WATCH

Scoring your first NHL goal can only happen once.
But you couldn't re-stage the events of exactly one year ago when Nolan Foote scored his first against the Pittsburgh Penguins on April 20, 2021, even if going back in time was possible.
On the broadcast, Ken Daneyko was voicing his thoughts on the bright future of Devils prospects; it was as if one those young guns heard the Devils legend from the booth and yelled back, "hold my beer."
Just as Daneyko finished uttering the words, Foote scored a top-corner beauty, assisted by Damon Severson and Nick Merkley.
As if the moment wasn't serendipitous enough, all three players in on the goal were graduates of the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League. Foote's dad, Adam, had been the team's coach and Nolan's brother, Cal, the Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman, also played for the Rockets.
Maybe not Powerball odds but close.

It had been a long and winding road to get to the NHL and there's been a few twists and turns since, but things are chugging along now.
During a phone conversation last week, Foote was playing out the regular-season schedule with the Utica Comets, who clinched the American Hockey League's North Division. That ensures a first-round bye in the playoffs, to begin in about two weeks.
"We have to wait and see who (wins) between the fourth and fifth (seeds)," explained Foote, assuming that Utica does as expected and clinches first place in its division.
Foote was a first-round pick (27th overall) of the Lightning in 2019. He came to the Devils organization in the Blake Coleman trade about eight months later. At around the time that transaction happened, Foote was dealing with a back issue that hampered much of the second half of his season. The pandemic eventually cancelled everything, before the Rockets got to host the Memorial Cup. Foote had already won a gold medal with Team Canada at that year's World Junior over the holiday season. The Memorial Cup cancellation deprived him of a chance to join a small group of players who had won Canada's national junior crown and a World Junior gold in the same season.
From a distance, you would think that Foote could bask in the glow of having been drafted and winning a gold medal, but it wasn't an easy time. He had missed significant time due to injury, there was the trade that separated him and his brother's professional rights. Then the whole season was scrubbed but not before his father had been let go as Rockets coach.
Foote acknowledged that there was some ups and downs before turning pro.
"For sure, there was some challenging times," he explained, "I'm not even sure if I was going to be able to play in the Memorial Cup because of my back. But it's all good now."
He turned pro with the Binghamton Devils last season and showed well in posting seven goals and 10 assists in 24 games, earning the callup and the chance to light the lamp in an NHL barn for the first time. Although he's recently gotten over a shoulder injury that had him out for almost a month, he's in the midst of his first full hockey season of the past three. Foote has 14 goals and 18 assists in 54 games with Utica so far and appears more comfortable since returning a few weeks ago.
With the playoffs looming, Foote will play more hockey this season than he has in the previous two combined. The return to normal means a more meaningful opportunity to grow as well.
"It's about playing a 200-foot game and developing into a (two-way) power forward," he said.
Foote, 21, can wire the puck and has had an NHL shot since he was 17. So good was he with the puck on his blade that the Team WHL coaching staff kept throwing him out to take multiple shots in a shootout that decided the 2019 Canada-Russia Series in the lead-up to the World Junior later that year. Canada won because Foote made good on his multiple shootout attempts.
He continues to be a very good north-south skater.
There had been some questions about his lateral movement and whether he can use his size (6-foot-4, 201 pounds) effectively. Playing for head coach Kevin Dineen's club, he is addressing those issues and certainly has the look of a prototypical power forward. There have been AHL games this year where opposing forwards have literally bounced off him.
The key, as always with players trying to make a permanent jump to the next level, is consistency in using that two-way quality.
"Kevin Dineen and I are constantly reminding him that (his) path to the NHL is playing a traffic-centered game," explains Devils assistant general manager Dan MacKinnon, in a recent interview, "and being hard to play against, being physical but (with) the hands to score, (both) things go together."
With spring in the air and a chance to make more of a mark in the AHL postseason, Foote is optimistic:
"We have a great staff and coaches here, a good group of guys," he said. "It's (an opportunity) to grow into the player that I want to be."