On October 29, 2014, a 21-year-old Victor Rask was eight games into his rookie season in the NHL. He had zero points and his team was 0-6-2, fresh off of a loss that marked the merciful end to a devastating, winless opening month of the 2014-15 season, a monumental disaster that made their goal of breaking a five-year playoff drought unfathomable.
20 months later, he put pen to paper on a contract extension that guaranteed him $24 million and six years of job security, making him an integral cornerstone of a team viewed as having massive upside and an undeniably bright future.