Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Time was right for Wild’s Cullen to go home
By Dan Rosen – NHL.com Staff Writer
After playing 880 NHL games over 12 seasons with five different organizations, Matt Cullen finally felt comfortable enough to go home.
The Minnesota native will play his first regular-season game as a member of the State of Hockey’s home team Thursday, when the Wild open their slate at Xcel Energy Center against Edmonton.
The moment is not lost on the 33-year-old former runner-up for the prestigious Minnesota Mr. Hockey award.
“It’s one of those things that not many people get the opportunity to do and I’ve been around long enough to realize how fortunate I am that it worked out the way it did,” Cullen told NHL.com while in Helsinki with the Wild last week. “Time makes you appreciate it more. I think you realize how lucky you are for what you have, and I have been really lucky.”
Cullen has played in warm-weather climates — Anaheim, Florida and Carolina twice. He’s played one season in the world’s largest media market, New York (Rangers), and for 21 games and a round in the playoffs last season he experienced what playing in Canada is all about as a member of the Ottawa Senators.
But he’s always been a Minnesota kid. He’s always thought about going home.
Cullen, 33, was born in Virginia, Minn., and raised in Moorhead, a town of roughly 13 square miles in the Red River Valley. He married his high school sweetheart, Bridget, and together they have three boys.
A story last month in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune detailed how Cullen’s old room inside his parent’s house in Moorhead remains perfectly intact, as if his mother, Nancy, is waiting for him to come home from hockey practice and eat some supper, do his homework and head off to bed.
“I told the wife she’s in charge of the tickets now, I’m not dealing with it,” Cullen joked. “We went to high school together in Minnesota, so it’s great. I’m looking forward to it. My family is looking forward to it. It’s great.”
Cullen isn’t so sure it would have been great earlier in his career. He admits there is a certain amount of pressure that comes with being a Minnesota kid playing for Minnesota’s NHL team.
Since signing a three-year contract with the Wild on July 1, Cullen has been a media darling and has been featured twice in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, once taking Wild beat writer Michael Russo down memory lane in Moorhead.
Cullen playing for the Wild is a big deal, as he’s only the seventh Minnesota-born player to skate for the team.
“Anybody that plays for 13-plus years, I think you figure out a way to put enough pressure on yourself that the outside pressure doesn’t weigh on you,” Cullen said. “I mean, I’ve played in New York. I’ve played in Ottawa in the playoffs. I’ve played the Stanley Cup Final. So I’ve dealt with a lot of pressure. This is a different pressure, but ? to me it’s more of a motivating pressure. It’s not anything that slows me. It excites me. It is a new challenge.”
Shocking stat
Rod Brind’Amour couldn’t believe what he was just told.
Cullen never has produced a 50-point season. He reached 49 twice as Brind’Amour’s teammate in Carolina and last season got to 48 between 60 games with the Hurricanes and 21 with the Senators, but 50 has eluded the speedy center.
Brind’Amour was flabbergasted.
“I would have thought for sure he has a year in there where he did way more than that,” the former Hurricanes captain told NHL.com. “He’s got the potential of making the great play anytime, but over the last couple of years he’s signed some big deals so they realize how good he is not even based on the numbers.”
Still, that stat seemed so out of whack to Brind’Amour because he remembers thinking, “it was a steal,” when the Hurricanes got Cullen in 2005.