It says a lot about the favourable spot on the rollercoaster the Toronto Maple Leafs are on that a hometown kid who is leading the NHL in goal scoring could roll in, declare his undying love for his boyhood team and it causes barely a ripple, let alone a crisis.
But the Leafs are rolling, emerging unscathed from the Buffalo/Nashville/salute-gate debacle with nine points in their past five games. Hey, American Thanksgiving was last week and the Toronto Maple Leafs are in a playoff spot.
The remaining 58 games will all be about positioning, clearly.
More NHL on Sportsnet:
Subscribe: Rogers GameCentre Live
Rogers Hometown Hockey | Broadcast Schedule
Sportsnet Fantasy Hockey Pool
It was the Dallas Stars who arrived as the latest fodder. The same Dallas Stars who employ Tyler Seguin. The kid who grew up playing minor hockey in the GTHL for the Toronto Nationals.
The one who took the Stanley Cup he won with the Boston Bruins back to Westwood Arena in the summer of 2011. The one who rolled into the Air Canada Centre as the leading goal scorer in the NHL with 18, and third in points with 31. The 22-year-old who trails only Sidney Crosby in point production dating to the beginning of last season.
The one who ended up being the player the Bruins took No. 2 overall in the 2010 draft, just part of the haul Boston took in for the Brian Burke trade that landed Toronto Phil Kessel.
The one who says, yeah, he’s still got blue-and-white blood. The one who still checks on his favourite team in the standings.
“It’s a habit,” Seguin says. “I’m still a Leafs fan at heart, I grew up watching them and loving them.”
Normally this is the kind of thing that would send Leafs Nation sideways.
It’s one thing for the likes of Steven Stamkos to be tearing it up in Tampa, or John Tavares to be leading a revival on Long Island. The Leafs never had a chance at those guys.
But Seguin could have been a Leaf, as everyone knows. And he sounds like he would be perfectly happy as a Leaf. These categories are often mutually exclusive.
As far as Toronto is concerned the deal has worked out. All Kessel has done as a Leaf is play every game and lead the team in scoring every year, and Seguin isn’t in Boston any more, a deal the Bruins can only be regretting as he’s emerged as one of the NHL’s most dynamic players in Dallas.
The scouting report provided by Stars head coach Lindy Ruff suggests there’s more similarities than differences between Kessel and Seguin.
“He’s having a great year,” Ruff said of Seguin. “He’s probably got one of the best releases that I’ve seen, shooting the puck. To me he’s shooting the puck more and he’s gotten rewarded for that.”
Shooting more has been a conscious decision by Seguin. He had 10 shot attempts against the Leafs Tuesday night, even if he was kept off the score sheet and ended up being on the ice for three Toronto goals. He’s in his fifth year in the NHL, but at 22 he’s still trying to expand his game.
“Growing up and in my first few years in the league I always looked to pass more, but this year I’m shooting more and finding those scoring opportunities and my teammates have been doing a good job setting me up,” he said.
“It’s from studying my own game. I scored a good amount of goals last year, but I thought there was situations where I was looking to pass more and that’s what I’ve changed this year. “
But part of Seguin’s appeal goes beyond his numbers. He gives off the air of that rarest of birds: the Toronto-born superstar who would actually enjoy being in Toronto. From his recently launched website, complete with the TS logo – “it’s about expanding my brand, I guess” – to his swirl of tattoos, to the Ferrari he drives to training sessions at St. Michael’s Arena in the summer, Seguin is not one who looks at the spotlight and wonder’s ‘why?’ He’s more of a ‘why not?’ guy.
Small market, big market, hockey market, sunbelt, you get the sense that the Tyler Seguin experience doesn’t change according to the audience.
“I don’t really care either way. In Boston I loved being there with the spotlight and there’s plenty of times in Dallas where I love that it’s more peaceful. Any time you’re successful the scrutiny is going to come with it,” said Seguin, who rolled into the ACC wearing a black tuxedo style jacket with velvet lapels. “Maybe early on (in your career) it could affect you a little bit, but I’m in my fifth year now, so everyone can say what they want to say, I’m just going to be as honest as I can be.”
And if that means taking shots of himself on a boat in Lake Ontario with a big crowd of girls as pretty and young and bikinied as you might expect would spend a summer day on a boat with an NHL star, well he will.
But as we were saying. This doesn’t seem to matter at the moment.
For once it was Seguin who was trying to explain his team’s failure at the ACC, not the guys in the home dressing room.
“I’ve had some good games and some bad games in this building in my career so far and tonight was definitely a tough one to swallow.”
The popular argument is that the Leafs don’t have a No. 1 centre. I make it all the time.
And then you have nights like Tuesday night when that other Tyler – Tyler Bozak – opens up the scoring after just 27 seconds of the first period, about seven of which it seemed was Bozak slowing down time with the puck on his stick as he out-waited over-matched Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen. It was Bozak’s sixth goal in four games. He leads the Leafs with 13.
Not Crosby numbers – or even Seguin numbers – but not too shabby.
And Bozak wasn’t the Leafs best centre on the night. That honour goes to Nazem Kadri, who was a threat on every shift it seemed. In addition to pushing the Leafs lead to 2-0 with 4:44 to play in the first after he teamed with the ever-busy Mike Santorelli to force a Stars turnover in the neutral zone, Kadri drew a pair of penalties. And he was a buzzing pest in front of Kari Lehtonen as he earned an assist on Phil Kessel’s power play goal that made it 3-1 early in the second period. Kadri added another helper when he finished off a determined 30 seconds of forechecking by setting up Joffrey Lupul on the doorstep to make the score 5-2.
Seguin? A quiet visit home. His league-leading goal total remained static. The Stars never really threatened, and neither did he.
For one night back home at the ACC, the kid who remains a Leaf fan at heart wasn’t the best centre on the ice.
