Manitoba Moose

Getting selected in the first round of the NHL entry draft is to a hockey player what having your numbers come up in 6/49 is to the rest of us -- a ticket to ride.

But getting selected twice in the first round of the NHL entry draft? That's just weird -- and the answer to a very obscure trivia question , an answer that also happens to be wearing No. 3 for the Manitoba Moose this week.

Meet defenceman Nick Boynton, the first-round pick (ninth overall) of the Washington Capitals in the 1997 entry draft. While you're at it, you might as well also meet Nick Boynton, the first-round pick (21st overall) of the Boston Bruins in the 1999 entry draft.

So what's the trick? Two different guys with the same name? Hockey-playing Siamese twins? Some Jim Cameron Avatar trick?

Nope, Boynton just happens to own a distinction so rare that I couldn't find anyone any place Wednesday who could definitely answer the question: Is the 31-year-old son of sod farmers from Nobleton, Ont., the only hockey player ever to be drafted twice in the first round of the NHL entry draft?

Moose GM Craig Heisinger, who knows everything, said he couldn't think of anyone else. Ditto Moose head coach Scott Arniel, who knows almost everything.

Moose director of communications Scott Brown, who knows everything about the Dallas Cowboys, found examples of NHL players drafted twice in different rounds -- Evgeny Korolev, for instance, drafted in the eighth round in 1996 and sixth round in 1998, both times by the Islanders -- but no examples of two-time first-rounders. And all kinds of web searches -- Google and otherwise -- also failed to turn up any examples other than Boynton.

So we are left to rely upon the word from the mouth of the 6-foot-1, 215-pound horse himself.

"I'm the only one," Boynton said after Moose practice on Wednesday. "At the time it happened, that's what everyone was saying and I don't think it's happened recently."

So how on earth does someone get drafted twice in the first round? Tastes in hockey prospects -- even the most coveted ones -- can occasionally be fickle, it seems, especially when there's a regime change.

Boynton had a huge junior career with the Ottawa 67's. He was rock-solid defensively -- plus-81, plus-34 and plus-53 in successive seasons from 1996-98 -- and also showed a playmaking touch, notching 51 assists in '96 and 48 in '98.

But a change in the front office in Washington made all those fine numbers moot.

"Washington never offered me a contract when I was originally drafted by them," Boynton explained. "The new GM wasn't interested; he didn't want me. George McPhee took over and it was still David Poile's scouts at the draft. He didn't want me drafted there, so I ended up going back in.

"It was great. I ended up going to Boston, played a couple of years in the minors and then went to the NHL. Things happen for a reason and it ended up working out for the best."

Boynton made the Caps pay a price for throwing him back.

He made the NHL all-rookie team in 2001 as a rock-solid defensive stalwart (he was plus-18 that season ) and also played in the NHL all-star game in 2003.

But that's about as good as it got for Boynton in what became a bit of an erratic hockey journey from there, with a pit stop in the English league and some allusions to "personal problems" peppering what's been a journeyman's jaunt through four NHL teams, and now the Moose, since 2005.

The question now for Boynton -- and the Moose -- is whether the rugged defenceman's career in the NHL has now ended like it started -- with a rejection.

Boynton had been playing with Anaheim this season on a one-year, $1.5-million contract (42 games, 6 goals, 1 assist, 59 PIM), but was placed on waivers last week and cleared.

With nowhere to play, the Ducks assigned him to the Moose. He's been practising with the Manitoba club this week and is expected to see his first AHL action since 2001 Friday night at the MTS Centre against the Toronto Marlies.

With a young -- and, often this season, injury-ravaged -- corps of blue-liners, the Moose are delighted to have a steady hand and one who feels he still has something to prove.

"He wants to continue playing and he's still young," said Arniel.

"He feels he has lots of years left and he wants to prove to people he's still a bona fide NHL player."

Which is all true. But it's also true that Boynton is here because, well, he cannot really imagine where else he would be.

"It's the only thing I know, the only thing I've ever done. I don't know what else I'd do. I'd be going back to the farm if I wasn't playing hockey. Considering the option, I'd rather play hockey.

"I've been very, very fortunate to play a game for a living and my friends would kill to do what I do."