Anaheim Ducks' Olen Zellweger Is a Lot Better Than 'Just OK'
By all accounts, Olen Zellweger is precisely the type of young player every team would be thrilled to have.
He’s dedicated to his craft, receptive to coaching and even has those intangible, take-him-home-to-meet-the-folks qualities that clubs seek when they talk about drafting the player and the person.
But it’s our unfortunate duty to report that, in one particular area, the Anaheim Ducks prospect is not to be trusted.
Asked to evaluate his own adjustment to the professional game, Zellweger offered that he was “just OK” in the early part of the season. And it’s here that Zellweger must be admonished, because “just OK” is a lie.
While readily acknowledging there’s more to the game than what appears in the summary, and especially so for a blueliner such as Zellweger, it’s difficult to accept his assessment. The ho-hum attitude about his performance suggests he struggled or outright failed to display the attributes that saw him twice named the WHL’s top defenseman. Neither is true.
Matter of fact, the evaluation is particularly challenging to square considering Zellweger opened his pro career with a two-point night for the San Diego Gulls and proceeded to notch four goals and 17 points in his first 20 AHL games.
This is, though, who Zellweger is: an inexhaustibly driven youngster whose goal isn’t to be good but great. So, perhaps it makes sense he’s critical of his near-point-per-game production to start his pro career. Anything less than out-and-out excellence doesn’t seem to pass muster.
“I was definitely having a lot of highs and lows throughout that time,” he said.
By Zellweger’s measure, he really started to come into his own by January. That’s when he started to feel like he was moving his feet and making dangerous plays with the puck, akin to his days in major junior. That this period culminated with being called up to the NHL for the first time was no surprise.
Despite registering an assist and averaging 16 minutes per game, Zellweger had his big-league stay end after four games and without promise he’d be back before the season was up. The Ducks wanted him to focus on his two-way game and defending, which are the most difficult adjustments for young blueliners. But the taste of the NHL motivated the 20-year-old.
“I was just really hungry and determined to be my best and get called back up,” he said. “I really found confidence in my game.”