Rolling out the Welcome Mats for Sundin’s next Leafs act

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Criticize Mats Sundin’s awkward exit from Toronto all you want, but the man sure knows how to make to make a dramatic entrance here.

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In an improbable second act, he is poised to come out of the blue to save the Blue and White, this time in a business suit. While talks with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment determine what is believed to be a senior hockey operations post, with a general manager working the trenches, it calls to mind Sundin’s first Maple Leafs saga, 1994-2008.

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That began with general manager Cliff Fletcher’s shocking trade with the Quebec Nordiques, swapping captain Wendel Clark for the future franchise points leader who eventually inherited Clark’s captaincy.

Unfortunately, Sundin was also burdened with Toronto’s Stanley Cup curse. And when it became evident to many that ‘his’ Leafs were not even making the playoffs — for a third straight year — the loyal Sundin refused to waive his no-trade clause.

“I love this city and this team,” he told a friend at the time. “How does that make me the bad guy?”

WHY NOT A TRADE?

But his stubborn stance cast him as a villain in Leafs Nation, which spends much of its time hypothesizing big trades, no matter how the team is doing. As the 2007-08 season waned, they viewed Sundin as selfish (Bryan McCabe, Tomas Kaberle, Darcy Tucker and Pavel Kubina were in the same boat and were dismissed as the all-too-comfortable ‘Muskoka Five’), blocking improvement via players or prospects that contending teams dangled to Leafs management.

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Sundin found it ironic to be labelled indolent when the stress and frustration of not being able to lift the Leafs and keep his title dream here made life hell. In his book Home and Away, he recalled smashing up the dressing room between periods of a loss in Anaheim when his teammates mailed in their effort and a tense showdown with interim GM Cliff Fletcher when trade offers poured in.

“I could’ve screamed: ‘I want to win the Cup in Toronto, what part of that don’t you understand?’ ” Sundin wrote. “I want to build, not destroy. I was having my best season in seven years.”

But the clock ran out on that Leafs team and Sundin’s time in T.O. The club didn’t get even a bag of pucks for a player once a first overall draft pick, as Sundin limped home to Sweden, considering retirement at age 37. He refused a two-year, $20 million offer from Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis to unite him with the Sedin Twins, until catching the playing bug in January 2009, taking a smaller pact with the Canucks to finish that season.

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He had eight points in eight playoff games, then left for good, a first-year eligible Hall of Famer  while Toronto’s post-season drought extended to 2013.

UPON FURTHER REVIEW

“Such a long time ago,” Sundin told Postmedia in a 2024 interview about his departure. “I understand now that no side was wrong or right. In my position, I wanted to finish here, the rest was business, the Leafs doing what they thought was right.”

The many months between Sundin’s last Toronto game and his return as a Canuck did take some edge off the bitterness. Those 987 points, being a buffer with three coaches, defending mates in the media or pumping their tires and his charity work put him in the pantheon of Leafs captains.

WELCOME HOME

He received a huge Air Canada Centre ovation when Vancouver skated out on Feb. 21, 2009, Toronto centre Matt Stajan drifting out of the faceoff dot so applause could get longer and louder. Of course, Sundin scored the overtime winner.

While devoted to home life with wife Josephine and kids Bonnie, Nathanael and Julian, he has come back to T.O. through the years to support favourite causes. One is his fellowship at The Hospital For Sick Children, an exchange program with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. When the Leafs gifted his original ACC retired number banner, he asked it be displayed in the Sick Kids Atrium, where he had visited incognito so many times.

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Sundin was also at the renamed Scotiabank Arena in 2022 to assist ALS-stricken countryman and Swedish pioneer Borje Salming’s final appearance. It was he who urged Sundin years earlier to accept Toronto’s offer to be the NHL’s first European captain, which Salming turned down in the late 1980s to his lasting regret.

When the Leafs made their second trip to Stockholm in 2023, Sundin has as big a role as 2002 when he hosted training camp there. Sundin also met a few Leafs while doing TV at the recent Milan Olympics for a Swedish network and of course has intel on Leafs news the past few years via Max Domi, who grew up around Mats when his father Tie was Sundin’s winger and on-ice bodyguard. None of that makes up for his lack of experience at the hockey office level, but he’s no novice and as in his playing days, would have some key lieutenants.

While Sundin sold his Toronto home and made a clean break to Sweden after 2008, ex-Leaf and Sportsnet pundit Nick Kypreos said earlier this week there were “whispers” Sundin is consulting local realtors again.

“I really did hope to finish my career as a Leaf,” Sundin told Postmedia in 2024. “The real regret was not winning the Cup, for me, but also for Leafs fans, who have supported the team support for generations.”

Anyone for a brand-new ending?

Lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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