After being drafted and playing on a National Hockey League contract for three years, many players have two choices when their first pro deal ends. They can view it as a chance to build their careers back up or as the beginning of the end. Normally, that happens at age 23 or 24.

After playing the last few years under their original NHL contract with Colorado or under and AHL contract with San Antonio, Komets defensemen Gabriel Beaupre and Will Weber signed with the Komets as free agents over the summer. This means their dreams of playing in the NHL have been smacked in the face, and now they have to decide if they can shake it off and play better to earn a chance with another organization.

“I just play the game and focus on my thing, and ignore the things I don’t control,” Beaupre said. “If I play well, I’m going to get the chance to get back up there. We’re human so we’re all disappointed a little bit. I love the game, and I love Fort Wayne. It’s not a bad place to play at all.”

That’s the best way to view it, but imagine being 23 years old and for the first time in your life getting told you weren’t good enough at the thing you love the most.

“It’s tough. It takes a while,” said Komets forward Shawn Szydlowski who went through a similar process a few years ago with Buffalo. “You are younger and most guys up to that point in time have never been cut from a team. That’s your first experience. I was never cut from a team trying out, made the team in juniors and got the NHL contract, and my second year of pro was the first time a team told me they didn’t want me.

“The next year I get sent down again and it’s tough. It takes a while to recover, but once you come down here and you get ice time again and you find your game, you remember what you are worth. There are definitely other cities that make it a lot tougher to regather your thoughts.”

This happens every season. Usually draft picks sign two-year contracts and then they are qualified for a third before being cut loose. Then they have the chance to negotiate with any other NHL or AHL team, but usually those teams are already concentrating on their next draft class. There are always new players being fed into the system.

That means players often have to decide if they want to play for the love of the game or retire and start the rest of their lives. Maybe they already have a college degree and a significant other who is waiting to get married or to start having children. Maybe there’s a great job offer to consider. There are all kinds of outside influences.

Weber already had a very busy summer going because he got married. His wife Gibson was able to transfer her job to Fort Wayne from Chicago so they could be together. He admitted he briefly considered retirement.

“The most difficult thing is you can’t make any plans because you don’t know where you are going to play,” he said. “Things would come up where you think you might have an opportunity somewhere and then things would fall apart. There were a lot of ECHL teams who called me, but I knew early on if I was going to play in this league it would be here. I was comfortable here and knew the people and we had fun last year.

“With our situation where we’re able to be together and if she wasn’t able to keep her job, that would have changed things for us.”

There are two huge benefits to being a free agent: 1. A player can maybe play an enhanced role with a team in the ECHL and show that they can do more than just be a role player; 2. Any AHL team can call them up as a replacement player, even San Antonio. That was why it was so important for Weber and Beaupre to go to training camp with Grand Rapids of the AHL. It wasn’t just a camp tryout but a chance to remind other AHL teams that they were available.

That’s what happened to Komets forward Garrett Thompson last year when he signed for half the season with San Antonio. He had played two previous seasons in the AHL with Binghamton before signing with the Komets last year. He’s hoping for another similar opportunity this season.

Even if players get a call-up, that doesn’t mean they will get a full chance to play in the AHL. They might get called up simply as an extra body or a practice player and get little or any playing time in the games which happens to goaltenders all the time. Some players hesitate to take the call-up, but then they realize their salary will be tripled for however long they are in the AHL.

“I never really tried to worry about what they are thinking,” Weber said. “I don’t take anything personally. It’s all business. I completely understand how it works and that if you have draft picks you need to play them. I’m pretty self-aware of all that, so I don’t let it frustrate me too much.”

The game is hard enough to play without thinking too much about things off the ice.