Takin' a T/O With BT: Who Needed an Opportunity? Mikhail Grabovski Did

Over the course of the offseason, the Toronto Maple Leafs were embroiled in turmoil and questions.

Just one month into the season, and those questions are starting to formulate their own answers:

Did the Maple Leafs make the right move in moving up to draft Luke Schenn? The initial assesment was that down the road, yes this would be the right move—no one knew we'd know the answer this soon.

How are the incumbants and the fresh blood alike going to take to Ron Wilson and his new regime? Despite some early troubles and a few rough patches, the new and improved Leafs have looked just that: new and improved. They're competitive and exciting—two things we haven't seen out of this franchise in years.

With the expected departure of Mats Sundin, who do the Leafs turn to?

Of all the questions that were brought up over the offseason, this seemed to be the most important. Schenn offered the Leafs a building block on the defensive side of things, while Vesa Toskala made up the now and Justin Pogge comprised the future of the Leafs' outlook between the pipes. The void at the top of the offensive depth chart though seemed gaping.

Many thought it was brash of Cliff Fletcher to announce that Nik Antropov was his "only NHL-recognized top-six player".

It was hard to argue with though. Coming into this season, Alexei Ponikarovsky had never scored with anyone other then longtime Leaf Mats Sundin and his twin-tower Antropov at his side, leading to this question: What's the difference between Jonas Hoglund and Alexei Ponikarovsky? About six pounds.

Others argued that, after a season of learning to deal with chronic myelogenous leukemia Jason Blake could prove Fletcher wrong, but the Minnesota-native has been anything but productive these first few games.

Then there was Niklas Hagman who, coming into this season, had only scored more than 29 points once (and as Jason Blake the year before had proved, Toronto has had some difficulty with career-year wonders), so no one knew what to expect from the Fishy Finn except some Flashy wheels.

But Ron Wilson saw another player on the Toronto roster worthy of the opportunity to play some top-level minutes (Unfortunately Ryan Hollweg couldn't keep himself out of Colin Campbell's office so Wilson had to look otherwise); a player whose deft scoring ability caught the eyes of the Montreal Canadiens' front office, but whose size raised flags, and his commitment to the defensive aspects of the game had them questioning his future.

The 5'11 Belarussian Mikhail Grabovski had become frustrated in Montreal over the 2007/08 season. He had started the season with the Habs and had undergone the typical struggles of any rookie early on, going scoreless first four games in the NHL (his first seven actually if you went back to 2006/07).

As the month wore on though, Grabovski started to show a little flash. He registered his first NHL point, an assist, on October 20th, and his first NHL goal two nights later, despite barley averaging over a shot-on-goal per game for the first month of his NHL career—a worrisome some stat for a player who likes to score goals.

Thanks to those early struggles though, and a -4 rating through his first month, Grabovski only saw four games combined in November and December, netting no points, two shots, and a minus-3.

Despite Montreal being a surprising 19-13-7 by the end of December, the Habs had no time to be dragging along a player who had trouble staying on his skates in traffic and lacked a will to play defense, shipping him back to the Hamilton Bulldogs of the AHL.

Once the rumor-mill that is the NHL Trade Deadline started to churn in February though, Grabovski began to garner some more attention with 20 points in 12 AHL games, and earned his recall on February 26th.

Despite the callup, Grabovski became increasingly distraught at his ice-time and arrived in Los Angeles separate (and ahead of) a scheduled team flight in order to talk to his agent.

Over the next few months, the word opportunity became a theme. Grabovski wanted it, and the Canadiens weren't prepared to give it to him as the season turned to the offseason.

But as so often happens in todays NHL, one team's distraught, hard-pressed, fledgling young underachiever, is another team's first-line centre.

Or so the Leafs hoped.

In a move that I still remember as highly questioned, Cliff Fletcher acquired the Belarussian (who reportedly doesn't really get along so well with the countrymen and brothers Andrei and Sergei Kostitsyn) in exchange for Greg Pateryn and a second-round pick.

While many berated the aging Fletcher, telling him he was "too old to compete in a young GM's game" and scolded him for trading "another draft pick", Fletcher and Wilson stood their ground in hopes that one day the move would silence the critics.

Four months later, take a poll: Would the Leafs be better off right now with Greg Pateryn and the 2nd Round Pick, or would they be better off with Mikhail Grabovski?

In Mikhail's short time in Toronto, he's seemed to have a new attitude as far as going into high-traffic areas, which was on display early-on in the preseason, his inability to get the puck to the net at the NHL level has been solved (he's only had seven games with fewer than 2 shots this season), and even his defensive play has been sturdy.

And as proven last night, even for a little guy, he can sure take the punishment.

And it was all thanks to the opportunity.

Ron Wilson made it no secret that Grabovski was going to receive first-line minutes, in an attempt to have him replace the offensive load left by Sundin. Not only was the role huge (a 5'11, 180 pounder with 27 NHL games under his belt replacing a 6'5 230 lbs 70-80 point player without any quality linemates), but so were the expectations.

Like Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, all eyes were on Grabovski to replace a legend.

And like BenJarvis Green-Ellis in New England, all it took was the right situation and an opportunity.

Granted eight points in the first five games of November doesn't make him the next franchise centre, but he's doing his best to make fans forget about that other blonde-haired, fresh-faced kid who came to town from a different Quebec City (kind of ironic that it was Quebec City?) just 14 years ago.

It's surprising what someone can do with a second chance isn't it?

Bryan Thiel is a Senior Writer and NHL Community Leader for Bleacher Report. You can get in contact with Bryan through his profile, and you can check out all of Bryan's previous work in his archives.