Wild's Scandella finds his comfort zone

If you're a reporter who happens to catch Marco Scandella relaxed (which is almost always), he's as charismatic an athlete as you'll meet. The Wild defenseman is liable to chat your ear off about anything from Italian food to sports cars.

Until not long ago, that was only with the tape recorder off. The second the "record" button was hit, Scandella's eyes would focus on the carpet, and his lip would quiver.

But as Scandella's game evolves on the ice, so has his transformation off it. Take Tuesday, when his media responsibilities were overflowing. That discernible uneasiness was missing. He was comfortable and having fun with the attention.

Fresh off signing a five-year, $20 million contract extension three days earlier, Scandella was a popular man with reporters covering his hometown Montreal Canadiens, the Wild's opponent Wednesday at Xcel Energy Center.

He did two radio phone interviews. He talked to Montreal's French and English TV and radio press for 20 minutes after practice, then conducted two one-on-one newspaper interviews — one with the Montreal Gazette, one with the Star Tribune, where he sunk into a leather chair for a half-hour and talked and talked and talked.

"It takes time for a young defenseman to finally come into his own," explained Scandella, who has been one of the Wild's most consistent defensemen — he has a plus-7 rating, is even or better in 17 of 21 games, has five goals and leads the team with three game-winners (two in overtime).

This is a player who had the 10th-worst plus-minus (minus-22) in the NHL three seasons ago. Yet last season, he became a defensive horse, and this season, he has emerged offensively.

How? By overcoming the ups and downs.

"I felt like maybe early on in my career I lost that mentality of what I had in junior," said Scandella, 24. "I'd go into every game and just know that I was going to dominate and do my thing. I played a little more timid than I wanted early in my NHL career, and going up and down [to Houston of the AHL] sometimes with the emotions, you struggle.

"But [in 2012-13], even though I played in the American Hockey League, I just decided every day that I was going to go to the rink and do my best and work hard and I would forget about that day the next day, good or bad."

"My first couple years, if I got scored on, it would really rattle me and I lost sight of bringing what I had the next shift. Things are going to happen on the ice. This is the NHL. People are going to score, you're going to make mistakes, but as long as you go out there the next shift and you play the same way and don't alter your game, things usually go well."

Teammate Ryan Suter might not be aware he taught Scandella that lesson.

"He makes it look easy," Scandella said. "But even him, he's not completely perfect. There's going to be times where he gets scored on, but when he gets scored on, he's not breaking his stick over the post. He just moves on to the next play.

"I'm not going to lie and say Suts and I have hourlong conversations, but we've had moments where he's definitely helped improve my mental strength in this league. Suts always believed in me ever since I met him. He was like, 'Scandy, you're good.' He's an unbelievable defenseman, one of the best in the game right now, so when things are going bad, I always think back, 'Well, Suts thinks I'm good, so why don't I think I'm good right now?' "

The mutual respect Scandella and coach Mike Yeo have helps. Yeo has coached Scandella since 2010-11 when the two were in Houston and went to the Calder Cup Finals.

"He's been all-in right from the start," Yeo said. "It hasn't been an easy road for him."

Scandella now says the best thing that happened in his career was the 2012-13 NHL lockout. He was forced to spend virtually every second that year developing under John Torchetti in Houston and was confident once the Wild recalled him for the playoffs.

"After that year, I knew I was ready — extra ready," Scandella said.

The Wild is glad it was patient.

"Trust me, if we wanted to trade him at the last couple deadlines, we would have had no problem finding a suitor because everybody recognized his potential," owner Craig Leipold. "He would not have been a hard guy to move."

But the Wild has always felt Scandella could be special.

"You see his physical package — his size, strength, mobility and ability to defend — and now you can see his offensive game emerging, he can do everything," assistant GM Brent Flahr said. "As we see him getting more and more confident, he's clearly established as a top-four defenseman and he's only getting better.

"We're glad to sign him long-term. Imagine what he'd get on the open market in a few years."