Takin' a T/O With BT: Mats Sundins' Tumultuous Toronto Return

There will be thousands of words written over the next few days of what will almost undoubtedly be Mats Sundin's last games in Toronto.

Some will be harsh, while others will be glowing. Others may just not know what to say.

After all, what can you say about someone who never showed they cared until they left?

If we were to just leave that sentence on it's own, it's unjust and inaccurate. There's no doubt that Mats Sundin cared about the Toronto Maple Leafs, the history, the fans, his teammates, and everything that discoloured and misspelled logo stood for.

If Sundin was hungry for personal accolades, he would have fled to another town where Jonas Hoglund wouldn't be the Robin to his Batman, where Harold Druken wouldn't have gotten a three-game tryout on the top line, or Mikael Renberg was acquired before his boat started to get the better of him.

If Sundin had wanted the easy way out to get a cup, he would've jumped ship to the Sakic/Forsberg era Colorado Avalanche, or maybe he would've followed Curtis Joseph to Detroit. Who knows, maybe he could've taken the money and run to the New York Rangers and helped put them over the top.

He never wavered; he never whined, complained, pouted, or sulked; you'd never here a word bad-mouthing his team or management, and he never publicly gave up.

But despite all of this, one of Sundin's most admirable qualities was that he never let you behind that steely-blue gaze. The eyes that seem to deaden when the heat is on in the third period or overtime of a big game. As much as he said to the media, you never really knew how he truly felt.

Tonight, for just a few minutes, that all came to a halt.

As Steve Thomas came out to drop the puck for the first faceoff, everyone breathed deeply—two of Thomas' best seasons came alongside Sundin in Toronto, along with some of the franchise's most recent succes—the game hadn't even started and it was evident that memories would come with every ebb and flow of the play.

It was the first period montage though, that finally showed the fans how Sundin cared for Toronto. Fans had seen the former Captain in all sorts of states, and he had spoken on how he had cared for the franchise so many times, but in the kind of world we live in, people constantly want physical proof.

The clouding of that ice-cold stare with tears though, was enough proof.

All of those Toronto years meant something to Mats Sundin.

It's hard to imagine anything making Sundin cry: The man has taken so many pucks to the face, so much heartbreak, and so much scrutiny, that anyone else might've broken down.

Sundin didn't.

In fact, he seemed to thrive on it most times, as indicated by his 15 career overtime winners.

But everything he went through was enough to break him the second time around.

As that happened, it was a sad truth that dawned: Sundin never got the respect he deserved when he left Toronto.

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