One game with the Fort Wayne Komets of the ECHL. That's all it took for Angelo Esposito to decide he was done.

It was a fun game too, in which the Komets scored four third-period goals to force overtime against the Indy Fuel before winning in a nine-round shootout. Not a bad way to kick off the 2014-15 season. That is, unless you had been tabbed for greatness as a teenager but found yourself still toiling in the minor leagues seven years later.

Esposito let his coach know the next day that he was going back home to Montreal. With that, one of the top prospects in the 2007 NHL draft was ready to call it a career after a nomadic, injury-plagued pro run that never included a regular-season NHL game.

"I went to the East Coast, and [during] that first game I didn't feel comfortable anymore playing. I thought to myself, 'Maybe it's time I moved on,'" said Esposito, now 27. "Honestly, the first month [off], I did absolutely nothing. I didn't step on the ice until December, and then I started playing with my buddies in their beer league just for fun."

He ultimately decided to come back, and his return to pro hockey last year helped him gain a new perspective on hockey and life.

It has been 10 years since NHL central scouting ranked Esposito first among North American skaters heading into the 2007 draft. Back then, the story wrote itself.

He was a lanky, agile scoring center from Montreal -- but no relation to Hall of Famers Phil and Tony, although he does have two uncles with the same names (and, coincidentally, his uncle Tony was a goalie in his youth).

In his first season on a dominant Quebec Remparts club coached by NHL legend Patrick Roy, Angelo Esposito starred. He was named the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League's top offensive rookie and helped the Remparts win the Memorial Cup. Even when he slipped to 20th in the draft, Esposito landed with a Pittsburgh Penguins team that featured talented young players Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury and Jordan Staal.

"We were happy to get him. He did enough as a young man to show he deserved to go in the first round," said longtime Penguins scout Chuck Grillo. "Patrick Roy, I talked extensively with him. He was a big fan of his. You could tell he was sincere when he talked about him."

The highlight of his final junior season was when Esposito, left, teamed with John Tavares to help lead Canada to a gold medal at the 2009 world junior championships. Esposito had three goals and four points in six games. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Sean Kilpatrick

That fall, Esposito played in his first NHL preseason game in his hometown against the Canadiens.

"All my family and all my friends came to the game," Esposito said. "It was a great feeling."

After being traded to the Atlanta Thrashers in the deadline deal that sent Marian Hossa to Pittsburgh, Esposito scored the winning goal for Canada in the gold-medal game against Sweden at the 2009 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships. It was a fitting end to a decorated junior career. Esposito could finally embark on what would no doubt be an eventful pro career.

Five years later, he was back home ready to quit.

"The last few years had just been a lot of downs and disappointments, so it was good just to get a little break," said Esposito. "Obviously, I was a first-round draft pick and not playing in the NHL. It's not something you're proud of, but at the same time, it's part of a career."

Esposito refuses to use them as an excuse, but injuries did come in waves after his golden goal. Shortly after World Juniors, he tore his ACL. The following season, his first as a pro, he tore it again. After a year spent rehabbing his knee, he tore his hip labrum.

Without an NHL contract entering the 2012 lockout, Esposito played in Finland, where he tore the MCL in his other knee. By the time he came back from that injury, his door to the NHL had effectively closed.

He played sparingly in Italy and Austria before his one-game stint with Fort Wayne. After that, his time was spent mostly playing beer-league hockey, hanging out with his girlfriend and managing Montreal properties he had invested in.

"There was a lot of baggage that had to be sorted out. He was pretty down," said Scott Livingston, an athletic therapist who had worked with the Canadiens, New York Rangers and New York Islanders before Esposito hired him to get him in shape and back into pro hockey.

"He had gone through a lot of things, as far as expectations, early on in his career. Things didn't work out and [he had] the injuries. He was in a fairly dark place when I started with him."

Almost immediately, Livingston sent Esposito to a sports psychologist. As Esposito was helped to hone his mind and body, it became clear how far the player had to go once Livingston got him back on the ice.

"He didn't look like someone who had ever played pro hockey before," said Livingston. "I didn't say that to him at the time, but it was the truth. He had a lot of work to do. But he did the work."

Esposito landed with Cortina in the Italian league last season. It was not the NHL, but with 38 points in 31 games, he arguably enjoyed his finest pro season. He started this season with Ceske Budejovice, a Czech league team almost two hours by car south of Prague. The arena seats 6,000 intense local fans and serves Budweiser. It turns out the Bud in the Czech Republic doesn't taste quite like the North American version, Esposito said, but it's close enough.

But the stop in the Czech league wouldn't last long. After scoring a single goal in nine games with the club, Esposito was released on Oct. 24. A statement from general manager Stanislav Bednarik hinted that the decision to terminate the contract was mutual between player and team.

"He suffered several injuries during his tryout and his position in our team therefore wasn't as everybody (including him) expected," a team spokesman said of Esposito in a statement to ESPN.com.

With that, Esposito was back looking for another shot.

As for why Esposito never made his NHL debut, it's difficult to pinpoint any one thing that kept the former top prospect from his dream.

"There's lots of reasons for first-round picks not playing in the NHL. There are usually 15 out of the 30 that don't," said Grillo. "He can constructively critique himself and assess where things went wrong. It had nothing to with skating or scoring. It may have had something to do with setting him up to succeed. I don't know. I've seen this kid carry teams on his back at the junior level."

With every new season in a new country, that elusive first NHL game becomes less likely. It took some time, but Esposito is at peace with that. And as much as he'd love to play in the NHL, it's not a milestone he looks at the same way he did as an 18-year-old star poised to take on the world.

"Am I disappointed that I haven't played a game in the NHL? Of course I am. Who wouldn't be? But you have to accept it and you have to move on," said Esposito in an interview before being released by the Czech league team. "If I'm going to sit here and think back about why I didn't do this, I'm going to be miserable for the rest of my life.

"Right now, I'm enjoying my life playing hockey, and I'm going to enjoy it as long as I can," he continued. "Once that's over, then I'm going to find something else to be successful in. Maybe I didn't play in the NHL, but I'll find something else to be successful in."