Raffi Torres is, as usual, all over the place.
"What do you mean, ‘Off-ice stuff?’" he is saying, presented with the rumours that have dogged him since about 2007.
Then, a moment later: "My fate rests in my hands. I feel like I’ve taken the right steps and done the right things in my life to kind of get it together."
Get it together?
Does that mean it was coming apart?
"I don’t know, I don’t know," he says. "I never really (heard) any of that."
Torres has never been in trouble with the law or been publicly called out by any of the five teams that now dot his resume through nine seasons. He never missed practices and planes, like Ray Emery, nor is there any courtroom art of him floating around, like Nikolai Khabibulin.
But Torres' value has plummeted.
Once an integral part to the Edmonton Oilers’ Cup run in ’06, he was a healthy scratch in the Buffalo Sabres final two playoff games last spring. The Sabres acquired him at the trading deadline, and then cut him loose after 18 games and zero goals.
The perception inside the game has been that he wasn’t as focused on his career as he should have been.
This fall he talks of maturing now that he is a member of the Vancouver Canucks. How he’s not the same guy he used to be.
"I just want to play hockey again. I’m hungry again."
Not that he wasn’t always hungry…
Spend some time around the Canucks and you’ll hear the stories about how, like every other team in the National Hockey League, they barely stopped at Torres’ name as management perused the list of unrestricted free agents prior to July 1. But as July turned into August, and Torres’ stock dropped to the point where he could be had on the cheap, the organization’s interest was piqued.
A former first-round pick — No. 5 overall in 2000 — now on his fifth team? On a one-year contract worth just $1 million?
"Should be real motivated, eh?" said head coach Alain Vigneault.
Whatever the reasons, Torres has become a reclamation project. That much is made clear after a few minutes with Vigneault.
"I’m not interested in — and I told him the first day I met him — what’s happened to him in the past," Vigneault said earlier in camp. "He’s got a clean slate right here. He’s got to come here, and have the work ethic and the team attitude we’re looking for."
Like Columbus, then Buffalo, and now Vancouver, teams are trying to find Raffi Torres circa 2006. He scored 27 goals and 47 points that season for Edmonton, another 4-7-11 in the playoffs, and was a hard-hitting game-turner all spring long.
Where did it all go? And how do the Canucks get it back?
"It’s going to be a combination of us putting him in the right situation, but to tell you the truth, I think it’s going to have more to do with him than us," Vigneault says bluntly. "If his attitude is right, if he’s doing the right things on and off the ice to be the best player that he can be, he’s going to put all the chances on his side."
So far in the preseason Torres has been merely OK. In two games he has a goal, an assist, and is minus-2. He was, like many of his teammates, not a factor in an 8-2 drubbing at Edmonton Sunday.
Though it is still early, he has not fulfilled Vigneault’s wish list: "Energy. A feisty player who can go to the net hard, and competes."
"Whatever they ask me to do, I’ll go out there and do," promises Torres, a player who has never been shy to point out his own shortcomings. "It’s not a secret. I’m going to try and finish my hits, score some goals along the way. I’d like to be better defensively… just be a reliable player.
"I’ve got to play every game like it’s my last."
He’s been saying that for a while now. Judging by the lack of interest this summer, the message coming back from NHL teams is obvious.
He may have dropped down in British Columbia this season, but from here on in, Raffi Torres resides in the Show Me State.
"I’m matured now. I know what I’ve got to do," he says. "You know, my problem is I’ve tried to do too much out there. Especially when I’m not scoring. I’ll grip the stick too tight. I’ve got to sit back and relax.
"Signing a one-year deal for not too much cake, it’s kind of like, ‘OK, you don’t have a great year and now you’re on the outs looking in.’ It’s really up to me on how my future is going to pan out."
That could be either the good news, or the bad.
