Blake Pietila has had a busy couple of weeks. It started on Sept. 27 as the NHL preseason got under way, when the New Jersey Devils assigned the 23-year-old forward to their American Hockey League affiliate in Albany. Then they recalled him a week later, then sent him back down again.

Pietila’s travels didn’t make major headlines. But they did cause quite a stir around America’s most remote hockey mecca.

Pietila,...