After spending the majority of his juniors career in Canada, Rodwin Dionicio’s journey will now take him way south of the border. Fresh off a season split between the Windsor Spitfires and the Saginaw Spirit where he put up 83 points in 60 games, won the Memorial Cup and signed his entry-level contract (ELC), Dionicio (dee-oh-nee-see-oh) is heading to San Diego to play for the Ducks’ AHL affiliate.
Originally, the plan was for Dionicio to play in Switzerland––where the New Jersey native grew up––this upcoming season with EHC Biel after he signed a three-year deal with the club this past January. But, after Dionicio signed his ELC with the Ducks, he said that “(the Ducks and I) had a great talk about what is the plan for us.”
Anaheim now feels comfortable enough with his body of work that they have decided to keep him close by instead of having him play in Europe again, as he did prior to playing in the OHL.
“His body had completely changed,” Ducks director of player development Jim Johnson said to NHL.com’s Jon Paul Morosi. “He was strong and able to move well. He’s a good skater moving forward and has great offensive instincts. The training aspect is very important — how you fuel your body, get proper rest, have good nutrition. All of that showed in his play. With his offensively gifted instincts, the sky’s the limit. He needs to have the same level of focus and commitment without the puck as he does with the puck.”
Derek Lee-The Hockey News
“It’s not my plan to go back home right now,” Dionicio said. “I’ve been here (in North America) the last three or four years, so it’s not something that bothers me. I’m really excited to take my chance here and just work and earn my spot. It’s really exciting, it’s been exciting for the last couple of months.”
Dionicio spent most of his offseason––a short one because of the Spirit’s run to the Memorial Cup Final––training back home with “a nice group of three guys that I had (two of them are the New Jersey Devils’ Timo Meier and the Chicago Blackhawks’ Philipp Kurashev).” He expressed surprise and excitement about coming to camp having signed his first pro contract and that there’s still more to work for beyond that.
“It’s just really exciting that I got the chance to come here and present my skill, my attitude, whatever I’ve got that they like about me,” he said. “That I can present it and just try my best and be the best that I can through the way that I’m here. Just really excited and really happy that I can sign my first contract here. It’s really exciting.
“(The Memorial Cup) was a lot of ups and downs but it was unreal. For me, it was probably the most fun that I’ve had playing hockey during my entire career so far. It was really great, a lot of fun. Our team was unreal from top to (bottom). It was an unreal time that I had in Saginaw. It was also my first time playing (in the U.S.), so it was a good sniff for me.
“It was rewarding at the end. Winning the Memorial Cup was what we wanted. Obviously, we wanted to go all the way with winning the OHL Cup too––we lost in the Conference Final––but our group never backed down. We always battled through it and our group was a good group to go to war with. We did it and that’s all I can say now, it’s in the past. An unreal time.”
Dionicio says that he still wants to improve his two-way game. An offensively-minded defenseman, the fifth-round pick’s skating and defensive work were cited as areas to improve when he was drafted in 2022.
“Throughout the whole season, I was working on my defensive play––stick control, stick gap––and I had a good coaching staff that supported me really well and pushed me to the limit. Even with the group that is here in Anaheim, they come out to us and work with us. It’s really great. I picked up a lot with those skates. I really appreciate the work that they put into me as well. Just trying to get my 200-foot game in the right (direction) so I can still do the things that I can do and maybe do them even better.”
Aside from English, Dionicio also speaks Swiss German, German and Spanish. Gulls head coach Matt McIlvane spent nearly a decade coaching in both Germany and Austria and while he has claimed that “my German has enough words that I can get by,” Dionicio says that former Team Germany assistant coach fares quite well at it.
“That helps me out a little bit because I can talk to him in German,” Dionicio said. “(The coaches) are great. They’re really great people. They help us on the ice, they’re really dialed in. They know every detail that can make you a better player and help you take the next step. It’s really exciting that I can work with coaches like this here. It’s not something that everybody gets and you just really appreciate this. Really excited to keep improving, it’s a good time ahead.”
