It took seven years and 348 American Hockey League games before Will O’Neill finally got his big chance in the NHL.
Never a doubt, right?
The 29-year-old O’Neill allows himself a little chuckle.
"You know, at certain times it seems like I couldn’t catch a break," says the defenseman, who made his debut with the Philadelphia Flyers in a game at St. Louis on Nov. 2. "And in different spots that I went to, that team wouldn’t get hit with any type of injury bug at all. It seems like the team that I left got hit with injuries — people got chances — and the new team that I went to hadn’t been hit with it at all."
It took injuries to several key defensemen — including veterans Andrew MacDonald and Radko Gudas — for O’Neill to get his opportunity.
But who cares about the circumstances when you’re skating under the bright lights for the first time?
"There’s never been doubt that I could play," O’Neill, a Salem, Mass., native and former Maine Black Bear, maintains. "It was just sometimes it felt like, ‘Am I ever going to get a chance here?’ A break was pretty tough to come by for a bunch of years there, so … the confidence in my game and the thought that I could play there (the NHL) never wavered, but there definitely were times when I felt I couldn’t catch a break."
For the first time in franchise history, the Flyers used four defensemen who had fewer than 15 games of NHL experience: Robert Hagg (14), Travis Sanheim (10), Mark Alt (three) and O’Neill. And yet even with all that inexperience on the back line, the Flyers hung a 2-0 loss on the Central Division leaders.
O’Neill has been totally committed to hockey for as long as he can remember, and that dedication explains why he understood when his father, a college coach since 1981 at Salem State (NCAA Div. 3), couldn’t attend the big event in St. Louis because of a game back home in Massachusetts.
"I wouldn’t have wanted anything different," says Will, who did have his mom and sister at the game. "It would have been great for him to be at the game, but he watched it after the game and he’s seen me enough that he knows the way that I would play in that game. That’s all part of it."
Besides, even though O’Neill was back with the Lehigh Valley Phantoms a few days later, he doesn’t expect that first NHL game to be his last.
That said, just how special was that inaugural game? "You know, to finally be rewarded with a chance to play in the greatest league in the world, it’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me," he says.
"It’s what you want to do your entire life. You don’t think of anything else. And hopefully there’s some more in it."
O’Neill credits Phantoms coach Scott Gordon (Brockton, Mass.), a former skipper for the New York Islanders, with getting him ready for the recent promotion.
"I’m critical of my play and he is, too," O’Neill says. "He’s forced me to play a certain way that’s helped my game in different ways. Realizing that, and him being on me like that, those are two things that go together that really make sure that I would buckle down. And bear down to the way he would want me to play. It’s helped my game."
So many youngsters are getting a chance with the Flyers this season. That includes Hagg and Sanheim, along with forwards Taylor Leier and second overall draft pick Nolan Patrick. It must be pretty exciting to be included in that youth movement, even if he is pushing 30.
"Yeah, it’s nice," O’Neill says. "The guys they gave a chance to last year are just like us. Going there is a confidence boost knowing that I played alongside these guys last year and we’re all the same. So that gives everybody a boost. That gives everybody incentive.
"When we’re here at Lehigh, as we progress, they’re watching us. It’s so close (to Philadelphia), they’re watching all these games. They can get a real good picture of what type of player you are. You string together some games, a season, you really get noticed. That was the case with Hagg, Sanheim and the other guys who made the jump to the NHL this year."
O’Neill is hoping he gets another chance.
"No doubt about it," he says. "You fight your whole life to get one and then you’re not really looking by the first one. You really don’t want the first one to end. You’re hungry as you’ve ever been for more. Nothing will ever be enough. You just want more and more."
There was joy in St. Louis and there was relief. It’s been a long road.
"It was great," O’Neill recalls. "My family had come a long way to see me. That was important to me. It was my mom, sister, best (childhood) friend from across the street. It was a little bit of a relief because I had been waiting a while. I thought throughout my career I had been deserving of a chance. To finally have it come, it was just a great feeling for everybody."
So what’s the moral of the story? If you stick with something, good things will happen? "I would say it’s the way that you think," he says. "If you think it’s going to happen and you convince yourself you think it’s going to happen … you stick with something and believe in yourself, then it will."
