📝 by Patrick Williams
Mark Jankowski saw what the American Hockey League can do to revive a sagging career.
He also saw what a strong Calder Cup Playoff run can mean in free agency.
But after four seasons mainly spent in the National Hockey League, the forward found himself reaching a crossroads in 2021.
A first-round pick by Calgary in the 2012 NHL Draft, Jankowski was named to the AHL All-Rookie Team in 2016-17, then scored 17 goals with the Flames in 2017-18 and put up 32 points in 2018-19.
But his production dropped in 2019-20, and Calgary did not retain him. A season spent with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2020-21 did not turn out to be fruitful, either.
Jankowski had 253 NHL games to his name when he accepted a training-camp tryout with the New Jersey Devils in September 2021. He was not offered a contract, so he signed an AHL deal with the Rochester Americans to start his sixth pro season.
And the production returned. In his second game with the Amerks, Jankowski had three points. Through the 13-game mark, he had churned out 12 points (five goals, seven assists). And the parent Buffalo Sabres had taken notice, giving him an NHL deal through the rest of the season.
Jankowski went on to play 19 games with the Sabres and spent nearly three months in the NHL before returning to Rochester to help push the Amerks into the Calder Cup Playoffs, where he contributed six goals and seven points in 10 games as Rochester got past Belleville and upset Utica before falling to Laval in the North Division finals.
On the second day of free agency in July 2022, Jankowski landed a one-year, two-way deal with the Nashville Predators. He began the season in Milwaukee and lit up the AHL with nine points (five goals, four assists) in his first seven games before earning a promotion to Nashville.
Jankowski would play 50 games for the Predators, posting seven goals and five assists and making himself handy as a depth forward, averaging 12:26 of ice time and ranking second on the team winning 55.7 percent of his faceoffs. He was also a valuable penalty killer for a Nashville team that tied for fourth in the NHL on the PK.
The Predators made Jankowski part of a Milwaukee-bound contingent of top forwards to help the Admirals on their Calder Cup run. And fortunately for Jankowski, he does not need to think about free agency this offseason: he signed a one-year contract extension with the Predators on March 13.
Here is a chat with Jankowski on his path back to the NHL and more:
ON HOW HIS TIME IN ROCHESTER REVIVED HIS CAREER
“Last year was a huge year for me. Just being able to go to Rochester and having that whole staff there. It’s a great staff down there. They’ve developed a lot of really good players that you see in Buffalo now, and it was a really good year for me. Talking with them, trying to figure out where to go and what move to make, they made it really easy for me to go in there and be able to be a top guy, play top minutes, and have a lot of responsibility both offensively and defensively.
“It was definitely one of the biggest years for me to be able to get that confidence back in my game, and I think that transferred over to this year.”
ON LAST SEASON’S CALDER CUP PLAYOFF RUN WITH ROCHESTER
“Last year in Rochester was my longest playoff run in pro, so it was a good experience to fall back on and to rely on. We had a really good team in Rochester, and we thought we could have gone even farther.
“It just shows you know how tough the playoffs are. No matter how good you think your team is, everyone in the playoffs has a shot. I can look back on that time last year and realize how hard it was and what it really takes to win through each game, each round, and then keep moving forward.”
ON THE STRESS OF SEARCHING FOR A JOB AGAIN LAST SUMMER
“It’s a crazy time. You’re trying to talk to these different teams and figure out what’s the best fit for you.
“Just looking at Nashville and looking at the roster, the construction, and hearing what they have to say about you, I felt like it was a good fit. I felt like they really wanted me, and they were going to be able to put me in a position to succeed and give me a chance.
“Luckily I had been able to go through it before, which makes it a little less stressful every time you do it. But yeah, you never really know until it happens. You never know what that situation’s going to be like and luckily for me, we made the right pick. They gave me every opportunity, and it was a great fit.”
ON STARTING THIS SEASON WITH MILWAUKEE
“The first impressions were great. I mean, I could tell before I got called up at the beginning of year that we had a really special team. We had a really tight-knit group, which I think is huge. For the long playoff runs, the teams that go the farthest are the tightest.”
ON FINDING HIS NICHE IN NASHVILLE
“Going up, I found a really good role that the coaching staff put a lot of trust in me.
“I earned that trust a little bit. For my game up there, having a good [penalty-killing] presence, good on face-offs, being able to have a good 200-foot game, be good in my own zone, create some offense when I can, and just playing an overall hard style of game. I think the coaching staff put a lot of trust in me, and I was able to show them that I could help that team win.”
ON ADJUSTING TO A NEW ROLE AND MORE MINUTES THAN IN NASHVILLE
“You’ve got to rely on and trust in the coaching staff putting you in the right positions to succeed.
“The basis of your game has to stay the same. I’m just trying to do whatever it takes to help the team win. So whether it’s winning a big faceoff, blocking a shot, getting a power-play goal, or something like that… just whatever it takes to help the team win.”
ON RETURNING TO MILWAUKEE FOR THE CALDER CUP PLAYOFFS
“[When] they told me they were sending me back down, it was basically, ‘We have a really good shot to do something special here. We think we have a really good team in Milwaukee, and we want you to be a part of it.’
“With me signing for another year, they want me to be a part of the future. I think to be able to go through that run and hopefully win it all with the future of the organization, with the guys down here, I think that would be huge for us. I know the guys, I know the staff, so it was a seamless transition coming back down. It’s been great. I’m really excited to be here, and I know everyone else is as well.
“The combination of size, skill, speed, coaching, it’s all top-notch here. I think we really have something. We have an opportunity to do something special, and it’s going to be hard, but we’re ready for the challenge.”
TheAHL.com features writer Patrick Williams has been on the American Hockey League beat for nearly two decades for outlets including NHL.com, Sportsnet, TSN, The Hockey News, SiriusXM NHL Network Radio and SLAM! Sports, and was most recently the co-host of The Hockey News On The ‘A’ podcast. He was the recipient of the AHL’s James H. Ellery Memorial Award for his outstanding coverage of the league in 2016.
