Nunavut’s pro hockey star hopes to continue career in New Jersey

Nunavut’s first and only National Hockey League player Jordin Tootoo, formerly with the Detroit Red Wings, may soon suit up in a different red uniform for the 2014-15 season. The Rankin Inlet-raised forward is trying out for the New Jersey Devils this fall, where he hopes to continue his NHL career. (PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS)

Nunavut’s top hockey player, Jordin Tootoo, will get a chance to keep his career going in the National Hockey League with the New Jersey Devils, according to sports news media in New Jersey.

Reporter Rich Chere of NJ Advance Media confirmed Sept. 13 that Tootoo, who is an unrestricted free agent, agreed to take on a professional tryout offer with the Newark, N.J.-based hockey team.

Tootoo has been without a team to play for since the Detroit Red Wings bought out his three-year $5.7 million contract in June — a full year earlier than it was to expire.

The 31-year-old forward, who hails from Rankin Inlet, spent most of the 2013-2014 season playing for with Detroit’s minor league affiliate in the American Hockey League, the Grand Rapids Griffons.

The training camp tryout will give Tootoo a chance to earn a place with the Devils, a team that has won three Stanley Cup championships and advanced to the NHL finals five times in the past 20 years.

The Devils last reached the finals in 2012, when they fell to the Los Angeles Kings, and have not made the playoffs since that year.

“He’s coming to camp. No promises. Just a tryout,” New Jersey Devils’ longtime general manager Lou Lamoriello said in an interview with Chere, Sept. 13.

“Like every other tryout, there are no promises of anything. Just simply an opportunity to try out.”

The general manager said Tootoo is a “different dimension type of player” who “bangs and hits.”

“It’s intriguing,” he told NJ Advance Media. “He played against us and he got my attention when he played for Nashville.”

Tootoo broke into the top pro league in 2003 with the Nashville Predators, where he spent most of his professional career before signing with Detroit in 2012 as a free agent.

The right-winger played just 11 games in the league last season with Detroit, where he earned an assist and five penalty minutes.

In the AHL with the Griffons for 51 games, Tootoo netted six goals, earned 11 assists and 104 minutes in penalties.

Known as both the first Inuk player and the first Nunavut-born and raised player to play in the NHL, Tootoo recently completed an autobiography of his life with Canadian sports journalist and author Stephen Brunt, called All the Way: My Life on the Ice.

Published by Viking Canada, the book is set for release on Oct. 21, in electronic and print editions. It tells the story of Tootoo’s path to the big league from small beginnings in Rankin Inlet.

A promotional summary by Penguin Random House Canada, parent company of publisher Viking Canada, promises a “searing, honest tale of a young man who has risen to every challenge and nearly fallen short in the toughest game of all, while finding a way to draw strength from his community and heritage, and giving back to it as well.”