Americans in demand for NHL

LOS ANGELES – Jason Zucker’s first skates had wheels. The 3-year-old kid learned the fundamentals of hockey not on a pastoral Canadian pond, but inside a roller rink in the stifling heat of Las Vegas.

Zucker didn’t touch ice until he was 6, following his older brothers onto an air-conditioned hotel sheet.

Twelve years later, he pulled on a Minnesota Wild jersey Saturday as a second-round NHL draft selection – the first player ever drafted from Las Vegas, the sprawling desert gambling mecca that had exactly three ice rinks at his last count.

“I might be the first, but I won’t be the last,” Zucker said.

Although the NHL’s expansion into the Sun Belt over the past quarter-century has been partially blamed for the league’s financial woes and talent depletion, the first fruits of that move might have ripened during the two-day draft at Staples Center.

Americans were in remarkable demand during the weekend, starting with a record 11 U.S. citizens chosen in the first round. The 30 teams drafted 59 Americans, according to the NHL’s measures of nationality, just shy of the 62 U.S. players chosen in 2007.

And these young Americans aren’t just from Minnesota and Massachusetts, either.

“Hockey has really started changing,” said forward Andrew Yogan, the NHL’s first Florida born-and-trained draftee, chosen early in the fourth round by the New York Rangers. “I’m just excited to be the first one, and hopefully I’ll open up a couple of doors for the guys after me.”

The momentum from the impressive U.S. victory at the World Junior Championships in January extended into the draft, with a record-tying 21 Americans chosen in the first two rounds alone.

They’re from New England and the Upper Midwest, but also from places like Scottsdale, Ariz., where Colorado seventh-rounder Luke Moffatt got his hockey start.

And fittingly for the first draft in Los Angeles, the first-round American choices at Staples Center included Pittsburgh Penguins selection Beau Bennett – the highest-drafted Californian in NHL history at No. 20 – and Long Beach’s Emerson Etem, chosen by his near-hometown Anaheim Ducks at No. 29.

“There are pockets where hockey has caught on and been introduced to a whole new group of athletes,” said Jay Heinbuck, the Penguins’ director of amateur scouting. “California is a great, growing base, and you even see players from New Jersey or Maryland these days, from places that aren’t normally hockey pockets.”

•The Western Hockey League had 43 players selected in this weekend’s draft. No Spokane Chiefs were picked.