Son of hockey legend Al MacInnis is ready for Tucson Roadrunners

Ryan grew up in the St. Louis suburbs, the son of an NHL legend; Al smacked pucks against a barn door in Nova Scotia, the son of a coal miner with eight kids. Ryan was born with natural talent, but only recently began to fill into his body and just now believes he’s starting to find his groove. Al was a first-round defense- man who scored 45 points in 51 games in his first year of major NHL action.

They are verifiable proof that there is no one true path to greatness.

And Ryan MacInnis, the Tucson Roadrunners’ 6-foot-3-inch, 183-pound power forward, intends to prove it.

A different player

Let’s just get this out of the way: No, 20-year-old Ryan does not have his dad’s shot.

Speaking of getting out of the way: When Al, one of the great scoring defenders in NHL history, wound up and uncorked one, you wanted to be anywhere else except in front of it. If there was a way to catch a bus in the time it took for MacInnis to draw his stick back, you’d buy a ticket.

A slapshot forged by hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of repetitions — corral, line up, THWACK, corral, line up, THWACK — against a small barn door in the town of Inverness, Nova Scotia. Regularly clocked above 100 mph, like a rubber bullet from an elephant gun. It would go down as one of the singular memes of the sport, like Gretzky’s ice vision, Messier’s leadership, Jagr’s flowing mullet. The kind of shot that lands you in the Hall of Fame .

Roadrunners general manager Doug Soetaert remembers it, having seen it a time or two in his 12 years as an NHL goalie.

Now Soetaert is in the business of analyzing and acquiring talent, and he believes he has a good one in Ryan. The younger MacInnis and the Roadrunners will face off against (and with) Arizona Coyotes in Sunday’s Red-White scrimmage at the TCC Arena. Admission for the 1 p.m. game is free, though donations are encouraged.

“They’re different players,” Soetaert says of MacInnis and Son. “It’s a different time, a different era. It’s a different league. Saying that, Ryan is a big, young, good-skating centerman with good vision. We’re really happy where he’s at. He jumped out the last couple years, started slow in his development, and usually big kids do come along a little slower.

“When you have that kind of size and strength, the sky is the limit. That’s the runway to stardom.”

For now, Ryan is grounded. Quiet and humble, his voice touched by that Canadian-offspring twang and that hockey slang.

He says he never was the best player on his team as a youth hockey player, though he began with the USA National Development program when he was 16 and was drafted by the Arizona Coyotes in 2014 as an 18-year-old. “Some guys are late-bloomers,” he adds.

But though he was not an instant star, and though growing up in the shadow of greatness must have been daunting, he fell in love with the sport.

“My dad played hockey so he threw a hockey stick in my hand, and I’ll probably do that with my kid, too,” Ryan said. “That’s just how I made friends as a kid. That was just the thing to do.”

His siblings, older brother Carson and younger sister Lauren and brother Ryan, all played hockey. Carson is now in law enforcement, Lauren is a committed to play hockey at Northeastern, and Ryan, still in high school, shows promise.

They grew up in the sweat- and testosterone-filled confines of the NHL locker room, so it’s no surprise they fell for the sport. Looking back, Ryan remembers it like any old childhood. He’d pal around with Matthew Tkachuk and his little brother Brady, the progeny of Keith Tkachuk, one of the great players in U.S. hockey history.

“We were all in the locker room, and it didn’t sink it that it was different,” Ryan said.

It was different, certainly not like Al’s.

“Coming from that small town and ending up in the Hall makes you understand how hard he worked for it,” Ryan said. “He taught me a passion for the game. He didn’t come up in a wealthy town, grew up on a farm, and he just worked his (butt) off. I want to do that, too. I want to have the same life for my kids that I did.”

The green light

There certainly are some intrinsic benefits to being the product of a hockey who’s-who.

“There’s a lot of pressure on you, you want to do what your father did, but also, the other side is Al taught him how to play the game,” Roadrunners forward Eric Selleck said. “He showed him what he has to do, how he has to act. My father was a carpenter. He showed me how to frame things.”

Especially perspective.

Selleck is one of the grinders in the sport , a guy who’s had a couple cups of coffee up in the NHL, but invaluable to a team for his impact in the locker room.

He relishes his leadership role; at 28, he’s earned it.

He sees a kid like MacInnis, and he sees his future .

“Kids are going to be young and want to adventure, but I think he has enough smarts that he tones it down when he needs to,” Selleck said. “And when it’s a green light, it’s a green light.”

A guy like Selleck is one to whom you listen, even if you think you know the professional way.

Heck, at this point in young MacInnis’ career, he might be the best one to give advice.

Forget who dear old dad is.

“Sometimes they don’t like listening,” Soetaert said of raising young hockey players. “I’m dad to them. Sometimes as a dad you have to back off and let them listen to someone else. All in all, most of the kids are open to instruction from their parents on how they made it, what they need to do. And then it becomes, you know what, dad, you were right.”

One thing is for certain.

Al still cares.

Ever hear the term “helicopter dad”?

“We joke about that,” Ryan said. “At Missouri State, where my brother was going to college, they had a parents meeting, and I turned to my dad, ‘Look at these helicopter parents.’ He is one. He is. He’ll ask me how I played, and he’ll send me an emoji of a helicopter.”

Here’s to betting that Ryan texts back.