ST. LOUIS — Tyler Bozak hopped off the St. Louis Blues charter flight on Saturday, kissed his wife when he arrived home, and then settled in for an afternoon with a three-year-old and a nine-month-old — like any dad on any day.
And you know what else he had planned on Saturday that made him no different than any of us? He planned to watch the Maple Leafs play Game 2 in Boston, just to see if his former ‘boys’ could do what the St. Louis Blues have done to the Winnipeg Jets — win the opening two games of their series on the road.
“I watch the Leafs games, oh yeah,” Bozak said. “I cheer for them. Mitchy (Mitch Marner), he’s a good friend of mine. Played on a line with him for most of two years. It’s pretty cool to see him doing so well.
“He’s still getting better and better. It’s going to be crazy to see in the next few years what he’s doing.”
Bozak, of course, could be talking about himself, as he authors an honest, effective National Hockey League career away from the glare of the team he broke in with in Toronto. Somehow having turned 33 right before our eyes, he has landed here in St. Louis, that utility knife, third-line centre that every good team has in its lineup.
Think Guy Carbonneau, or Sami Pahlsson. Maybe a little John Madden, or some Manny Malhotra.
Or perhaps a more recent example?
“How about (Calgary’s) Mikael Backlund?” offers Patrick Maroon, Bozak’s left-winger on a line that has befuddled the Jets through 120 minutes of playoff hockey.
Backlund has grown into a trusty faceoff man and dependable defensive rock, giving the Flames 20 goals and 45-50 points a year. And what does Bozak do for the Blues?
“Wins faceoffs. Very skilled. Centres a good shutdown line. Can take D-zone faceoffs. Can score goals and make high-end plays,” said Maroon. “Bozie just has that veteran presence. He’ll get you 15-20 goals, 45-50 points a year, and he’ll find ways to grind it out every night.
“You can use him all three zones — he’s an all-around player.”
It’s been a pretty cool journey for a Regina kid who chose the Leafs from a league-wide field of teams that courted him as a college free agent out of the University of Denver. It was then Leafs Assistant GM Joe Nieuwendyk who finally earned Bozak’s trust, which was well placed when you consider that Nieuwendyk’s Flames pioneered the art of building an NHL team full of NCAA grads, under the great Badger Bob Johnson.
Today, Bozak centres a line with Maroon and the sublimely skilled rookie Robert Thomas, a unit that produced the game-winner in Game 1, and then erased the Jets’ only Game 2 lead when Maroon shovelled one home in a 4-3 win on Friday.
“I feel rejuvenated,” Bozak said, chatting easily while sitting in his stall in the visitors’ room in Winnipeg. “A new opportunity, in a new role, in a new place. You want to prove to the guys and the general manager that they made the right decision. Took a little time to get used to the systems, playing in the West instead of the East, but it’s been awesome. The family loves St. Louis.”
Talk about night and day, Bozak moved from the centre of the hockey universe to the equivalent of, say, Neptune. Not the furthest market from the sun, but closing in on it.
“Our fans are awesome, but baseball is the dominant sport in the city. The Cardinals (players) are the big dogs in town,” he said.
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What’s the biggest difference being an NHL player in Missouri?
“Just the attention that you get, or the pressure that it might bring. You don’t get bugged everywhere you go around town. When you leave the rink, you’re away from hockey.”
St. Louis sports fans know who Bozak is, “but they don’t really bug you like they might in Toronto. You can forget about the game,” he said. “You know, you play so much hockey you’re at the rink so much, it’s nice to get it off your mind. You turn on a TV in Toronto, you walk around town, it’s hockey, hockey, hockey, wherever you go. It’s kind of hard to get away from.”
The Blues are a franchise that haven’t been back to the Stanley Cup Final since Glenn Hall used to take them out of the Western side of the Original 12, only to swept in the Cup Final in each of 1968, 1969 and 1970.
Nearly a half-century later, the path is opening up for St. Louis, who could squeeze the belief out of the Jets with a home-ice win on Sunday night.
Bozak will be an important part of whatever happens in Game 3, but that’s for later on. First, he’ll put on the Leafs game. Maybe pick up a pizza.
Without having to sign any autographs.