Rigamarole - A Foot In The Crease - Episode 5.3

www.afootinthecrease.com

With the retirement of Mats Sundin, the NHL said goodbye to one of its most dominant players of the past two decades. When he was acquired by the Toronto Maple Leafs in an unpopular trade at the time in 1994 that saw, among other players, fan favourite Wendel Clark sent to the Quebec Nordiques, few had any notion that the unassuming young Swede would eventually go on to become arguably the best ever to put on a Maple Leaf jersey.

Apart from the lockout shortened season in 1994-1995 in which he scored forty seven points in forty seven games, Sundin was the model of consistency, never scoring less than seventy points in a season. All the while, he handled the pressure of leading, as captain, one of the most storied teams in hockey with the kind of class and dignity that turned him into a superstar not just on the ice, but off the ice as well.

Never winning a Stanley Cup will be long seen as the glaring omission from his sublime career not unlike another former Leaf captain, Darryl Sittler, whose records Sundin surpassed during his final days with the Maple Leafs. But while surrounded by and large throughout his time in Toronto with B-list wingers at best, Sundin still managed to produce, on his own, many of the moments that define the last decade and a half of Maple Leaf hockey.

While he was with the Maple Leafs, it took Sundin too long to earn respect from the fans. Now that he’s gone, the fact that the Maple Leafs are still grappling with the decision of replacing him as captain should show how lucky they were to have him. As Joni Mitchell once said, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.”

There is no question in my mind that in three year’s time, Sundin will deservedly be a sure-fire first ballot Hall of Famer and will one day have his number immortalized with other Leaf greats in the rafters of Air Canada Centre. Forever #13 in a Maple Leaf jersey will belong to Mats Sundin. But hey, all that was just rigamrole.