Ryan Lindgren showed up to the Shattuck-St. Mary’s Sept. 2011 tryouts as a forward.
Then-head coach John LaFontaine sifted through the players gunning for a spot on the high school’s top team and broke them out onto the ice, placing Lindgren on the blue line.
“The first day of practice [at Shattuck], I thought I was a forward and the coach came up to me and told me I was playing D this year,” Lindgren said, according to a story published by the U.S. National Development Program in 2014. “It was kind of a shock at first.”
LaFontaine made a mistake –– one that arguably put Lindgren on the path to the NHL.
