Oft-moving, late-blooming Owen Lindmark not a typical NHL Draft prospect

Technically hailing from Naperville, the projected late-round pick has followed a fascinating career path.

SHARE Oft-moving, late-blooming Owen Lindmark not a typical NHL Draft prospect
Lindmark_celly__5_.jpg

Owen Lindmark is a lesser-known name among a loaded class of U.S. National Team Development Program players.

Rena Laverty/USA Hockey

Owen Lindmark is used to waiting.

He waited eight years, albeit unknowingly, to skate for the first time. He waited through five-hour daily car rides to play hockey. He waited for scarce ice time beneath a loaded class at the U.S. National Team Development Program.

He’ll wait for a while in Vancouver, too, to hear his name potentially called in the latter stages of the 2019 NHL Draft later this month. He might not hear it at all, though most projections slot him into the sixth or seventh round.

That’s all right. He’ll take it. For a kid of his background, with his story, just making it to this point — a spot among Jack Hughes, Alex Turcotte and others in the USNTDP, a scholarship alongside Turcotte and Cole Caufield in the University of Wisconsin’s incoming class, an invitation to the NHL Combine — is a remarkable accomplishment.

“Everything [my parents have] sacrificed and all the motivation they’ve given me since I was really young, it’s finally starting to pay off,” he said in Buffalo last weekend. “But there’s a long road ahead, for sure.”

The demographics have never been in Lindmark’s favor. A native of Enid, Oklahoma, Lindmark is hoping to become only the sixth Oklahoman to play in an NHL game. And that’s just the start of the story.

Lindmark___1_.jpg

Lindmark is now a 6-foot center who could go in the latter rounds of the draft later this month.

Rena Laverty/USA Hockey

Born into an always-on-the-move military family — his father, Steve, is a now-retired Air Force colonel of 21 years — Lindmark has moved somewhere between seven and 10 times, the exact number up for debate.

“How many times did Owen tell you we moved?” his father asked. “They all run together.”

He didn’t start skating until he was 8 in St. Louis, his fourth city and his first with any youth-hockey opportunities.

That happened in October 2009. By December, he was on a team. By spring, Steve Lindmark recalls, he was scoring so much that he’d get banished to defense for fair play’s sake. Within two years, he was playing for Hall of Famer Al MacInnis on the top youth team in St. Louis. The climb was dizzying.

Later, living in the Quad Cities of Iowa, Owen Lindmark commuted two-and-a-half hours — each way, every day — to play for the Chicago Mission bantam program.

“Obviously, the drives were really tough,” he admits. “I didn’t even have a phone, so I read tons of books.”

Then, in 2017, came an invitation to the USNTDP: an opportunity to join arguably the most deep and talented age class in American hockey history and to follow in his father’s footsteps in a different sort of way.

By then, the Lindmarks had moved to Naperville, which has become technically Owen’s hometown in prospect profiles. The USNTDP would require one more move, however, to stay with a host family in the Detroit suburbs.

“It was definitely something I couldn’t turn down, not only because of the awesome experience that I would get there, but [also because], at the same time, I’d be able to represent my country just like my dad did,” Owen Lindmark said.

“Being a career military guy, having him play for Team USA and put the uniform on for two seasons was the most satisfying thing of all,” Steve Lindmark added. “What more could you ask for as a dad?”

Lindmark_action_3.jpg

A Wisconsin commit, Lindmark played 175 games for various U.S. national-team squads over the last two years.

Rena Laverty/USA Hockey

Now a 6-foot centerman, Lindmark had 33 points in 58 games for the USNTDP Juniors and 62 points in 117 games for the U.S. national U17 and U18 teams over the last two seasons.

Those aren’t mind-blowing totals — nothing like the stat lines dotting every sentence of this year’s expected top picks — but they’ve been enough to catch the eyes of scouts.

He interviewed with 10 teams at the combine, including the Blackhawks, Owen’s team of choice ever since catching a Hawks-Stars game televised in Oklahoma. He also checked off two other combine essentials, of debatable import but endless folklore: an off-the-wall team interview request (the Devils asked him to do the floss dance) and a top performance in a random physical test (third place in peak power output during the Wingate cycling test).

And now, it’s time for Owen Lindmark to wait, again.

He’ll wait for his shot and stickhandling, two areas on which he has focused his summer training, to show substantial improvement. He’ll wait for the college hockey season to begin in Madison in autumn. He’ll wait for the hockey universe’s convergence in Vancouver in two weeks’ time.

And then he’ll keep waiting. Because even as impressive as it is for an oft-moving, late-blooming military kid to make it to this platform, the seventh round is far from the end goal.

“It’s a nice label to have, saying you’re drafted, but really it doesn’t mean jack squat,” Steve Lindmark bluntly puts it. “And he knows this.”

The Latest
With Easter around the corner, chocolate makers and food businesses are feeling the impact of soaring global cocoa prices and it’s also hitting consumers.
Despite getting into foul trouble, which limited him to just six minutes in the second half, Shannon finished with 29 points, five rebounds and two assists.
Cowboy hats, bell-bottoms and boots were on full display Thursday night as fans lined up for the first of his three sold-out shows.
The incident occurred about 3:40 p.m. near Minooka. The horse was successfully placed back into the trailer, and the highway reopened about 40 minutes later. No injuries were reported.