Back with a vengeance

Daryl Boyce is nothing, if not persistent.

The 27-year-old Summerside, PEI, native wasn't drafted after a four-year junior career with the Toronto St. Michael's Majors of the Ontario Hockey League, but after spending two seasons playing with the University of New Brunswick, he was signed by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

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Not only signed, but called up to The Show.

After starting the 2007-08 season in the American Hockey League with the Toronto Marlies, Boyce was called up to join the Leafs for a game in Washington Jan. 24, 2008.

Finally, his dream of playing in the NHL had come true. The dream quickly turned into a nightmare.

Boyce blew his shoulder out in his first big league game and that was it as far as the NHL was concerned until last Dec. 30, 2010 when he was once again summoned from the Marlies as an injury replacement. This time he stayed healthy and remained the rest of the year in the NHL. The 6-foot, 200-pound left winger had an assist in his first game back and scored a goal in his second. He had two goals and five points in his first eight games and finished the year with five goals and 13 points with 33 penalty minutes. He was also an impressive plus-8.

So when this season rolled around, Boyce was hoping his body of work with the Leafs would be his ticket to his first full season in the NHL.

Unfortunately, when you are a team that has not made the playoffs in six seasons, changes are necessary. The Leafs brought in new players and those players took the places of Boyce along with defenceman Keith Aulie and winger Joey Crabb. All three are back up with the Leafs at the moment because of the team's injury situation.

For Boyce, who has played a major role in the Marlies being one of the AHL's best penalty-killing teams this season, the call was most certainly welcome. He was in Chicago when he got the word Monday night and had a hard time sleeping.

"I gave my mom a quick call and then turned my cell phone off because it's so expensive making international calls," Boyce said. "I didn't get much sleep. I was too afraid of missing my flight."

Boyce made the flight and joined the rest of the Leafs Tuesday night at ACC for an open practice. The Leafs went through a regular workout; then scrimmaged 4-on-4 for 15 minutes before holding a penalty shot competition. They ended the evening by giving some lucky fans the shirts off their backs - autographed, of course.

Toronto had a number of call-up options after Colby Armstrong went down with a concussion and fourth-line centre Philippe Dupuis was put on IR with an upper body injury. Nazem Kadri leads the Marlies in scoring with eight goals and 22 points in 22 games while Joe Colborne has 10 goals and 21 points in 18 games. They seemed to be the obvious choices.

But since the Maple Leafs are the NHL's worst penalty-killing team, it made sense to opt for somebody with a sense of defensive acumen.

"If I am put in that position, I am just hoping I can help and contribute to the penalty kill here," Boyce said. "My speed is one of the assets to my game so I'm going to try to use it to force guys into making decisions they don't want to make."

You can bet he'll be put in that position when the Maple Leafs host the Buffalo Sabres Thursday night. Boyce is elated to once again have the opportunity to prove himself at this level. That means he hopes to provide solid defensive play with a little bit of grit tossed in.

"Last year I just took things game by game and I'm going to try to do the same thing again," Boyce said. "I'm going to play my game and not change much of what I have done this year. My first game with the Marlies I had two fights, so I'll try to play the body and get on pucks in the offensive zone."

He probably had those two fights out of sheer frustration. Any way you paint it, Boyce thought he did enough with the Leafs last season to, at the very least, start the year in the NHL. When he was sent down, he was, uh, a little bitter.

"I put a good body of work in here last year," Boyce said. "Truthfully, if you look at my stats they're really good numbers for a guy who plays on the third and fourth lines. To improve on that will be something in itself, but that is a goal of mine.

"When I was sent down it might not have been the biggest story of training camp, but to me it was a devastating blow. I had to make sure I was okay between the ears and I wanted to have a good mindset so that a lot of my good habits over the summer didn't go to waste in the first couple of months with the Marlies."

Because of his age and with his previous NHL experience, Boyce is now in a position that because he cleared waivers when he was assigned to the Marlies following training camp, if he spends 10 games or 30 days accumulatively this season and is sent down again, he would have to clear waivers once again.

Veteran hockey columnist Mike Brophy will cover the Toronto Maple Leafs for sportsnet.ca for the 2011/12 season.