Devils’ Travis Zajac intrigued with idea of NHL finishing season at alma mater North Dakota

On Sunday night, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the NHL was starting to “spitball scenarios as to where remaining 2019-20 regular-season/playoff games could be held.” He added that a person of those places would remain in Grand Forks, N.D., at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

“Well, that’d be pretty cool, I will say that. I did hear that the other day,” stated the New Jersey Devils’ Travis Zajac, who played 2 seasons of college hockey for the University of North Dakota’s then-Fighting Sioux and now Combating Hawks, on a video call with press reporters Tuesday. ” In New Jersey, New York City, it’s kind of hard to picture us playing in front of fans here anytime soon with, to be sincere, how bad it is. You understand, I understand the NHL is stressful every alternative possible and it appears like North Dakota hasn’t been undoubtedly struck as hard as some of these locations.

“The players all want to finish the year, and any way we can, so if it comes to it where we have to go to a neutral site to play, I know guys would be for it.”

The home of the Combating Hawks, Ralph Engelstad Arena is a multi-million dollar center that has actually worked as the background for 2 significant international occasions: the 2005 World Junior Championships and the 2016 World Under-18 men’s competition. It can seat as much as 11,643 and consists of a 10,000 sq. ft. weight space, 14 locker spaces and an additional Olympic-sized sheet of ice.

NHL and North Dakota: Whatever you need to understand about the league’s possible return

Along with Zajac, existing NHLers consist of the Canucks’ Brock Boeser, the Capitals’ T.J. Oshie, Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews and Zajac’s former Devils colleague Zach Parise. played their college hockey for UND at Engelstad Arena. Zajac, Oshie, Toews and former Devil Drew Stafford used the school’s 2005 team that lost to the University of Denver in the championshipgame Zajac made WCHA All-Rookie Team and NCAA Championship All-Tournament Team in 2005 and potted 86 points (38 objectives, 48 helps) in 91 professiongames

“It’s a great college town,” stated Zajac, who was 9 shy of 1,000 NHL profession games– all with the Devils– when the season was stopped briefly; New Jersey has 13 games staying. “I believe [my] 2 years there, we offered out every game, had terrific student areas, so it was an enjoyable environment.

“[When] I existed they had the World Champions there too I keep in mind and they had terrific, terrific crowds for that. I would presume if they did have NHL at some point there this year, if it came to that, there ‘d be a lot of terrific hockey fans there, most likely from all over the state. I make sure people will be taking a trip, I do not understand if that’ll be enabled or not. You understand, it’s simply, it’s an excellent rink, too. Clearly, there’s very few rinks with that kind of custom and environment and the centers. I believe it’s superior, it’s as excellent as any NHL rink there is.”

Whether the NHL go back to liquidate the 2019-20 season is anybody’s guess at this point. As Zajac noted we do not understand where the end is, nevertheless, he would like the chance to finish the year off.

“It would still be nice to get back and get back with the team and kind of finish the season together,” he stated when inquired about the NHL drawing back up with just the 24 teams in contention for the postseason; the Devils are out of the playoff photo however were 6-2-2 in their last 10games “It hasn’t really felt like we finished anything. Whether we make the playoffs or not, it’s just, there’s no real end to it or anything like that. So, I think, for our group, we would like to get together and kind of, whenever it may be, finish the season.”

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