As the Toronto Maple Leafs seek to renew their squad after the sixth straight round, the key questions will be answered at the core of their squad. The first six, Core Four, are the central parts that will drive the club’s drive for better results in May and June 2022-23.
But further on the periphery of the list is another subtle but important question that needs to be answered. How about Jason Spca, an older Maple Leafs statesman who has a habit of making concessions in his hometown to stick with his boys’ team?
After another disappointing finish that left Maple Leafs true, and many wondered what changes the list would undergo before returning to the ice in October, the 38-year-old’s future in blue and white looks bleak than it did last summer. .
“I don’t know, I’m a little lost right now, to be honest,” Speza said on Tuesday when asked what was next for him as he struggled to recover from the frustration of this short post-season. “It simply came to our notice then. So at this point, I’m just with my family and hanging out.
“There are a lot of questions.”
One thing that is not in question, however, is the readiness of No. 19 to take another step to help push these besieged maple leaves over the finish line if they want to bring it back.
“I love the game. “I’ve always said that if I can ensure the significance of the band, if I’m a collaborator every night, then I want to play,” he said. “So, there are talks that need to be held with me and the management, the coaches. But this is the only place I would play. “
The transformation of Spezza in Toronto is well documented. A 90-point offensive phenomenon, the former Ottawa senator and Dallas star has changed every aspect of who he is as an NHL player to stay in the league as his career draws to two decades. For the last three seasons, this has meant exchanging the fame of the top six for the grind in the bottom six, playing 10 to 11 minutes a night, or not making an imprint on the ice at all, but on it.
“I had to reshape myself as a player to survive,” Spca said of the trip. “I’m not the player I used to be – I don’t think anyone when they reach 39 will be the same player they were in their 20s. But I tried to contribute with everything I had every night. I think sometimes I really liked my game, sometimes I was disappointed with where my game was.
“But I think I just really tried to accept the role and be good at it, to be the best I could be with what I was given and what I had left. It was a kind of daily trick, I was just trying to get the most out of it. “
Seeing the team fail once again, seeing that they had to answer all the same questions as a year ago, made the veteran wonder how influential his presence really was to climb this club.
“I really, really believed that the team would break through this year. “I worked hard to help the band jump over and then fail again, which is frustrating for me,” he said. “This makes me ask myself, ‘Have I done enough?’ Did I help you press the right buttons? Did I do everything I could to help the team get through? ‘ So, I think it’s just hard.
“It’s just that these chances don’t come up very often. So it’s hard.”
No matter how depressing the bigger Leaf is, you don’t have to dig too far back to find out how he helped pull this club forward.
When these Leafs lagged behind in Game 5 of that first-round bout with defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, they dropped 2-0 on a night that would have sent them to a 3-2 series deficit and perhaps an even quicker death. , Speza was the one who brought his friends together between periods – he gave an exciting speech in the intermission before Toronto rushed back to win 4-3.
This team will work as its core, their highly paid star leaders in the top six. But in the background, far from the light, there is a small question that number 19 has played a significant role in pushing his club to progress.
“I don’t know if I can measure and even have words to say how important he is to our team,” John Tavares told Spca. “Especially for me as a captain. He is someone I can really lean on. And then obviously what he can do as a hockey player and how he just accepted the role he has, because he really believes in this group here and what we can do and the opportunity we have.
“It’s not just that – it’s the fun and joy he brings every day, at his age and how long he’s been around. He was an extremely important player and a person for us. “
“He means a lot,” Morgan Riley repeated. “He was a great leader for us. He was a man that almost anyone could lean on, and he had the opportunity to lean back and choose his brain. ”
Kyle Dubas would only say that he will meet with Spezza in the coming days and leave, but no matter what happens next, there is no doubt what Spezza has brought to the organization during his tenure in Toronto, the director general said.
“It’s really hard to fully describe the impact he had on the team,” Dubas said. “Obviously his contribution to the list, but in the locker room, in the summer, the time he spends with each younger player since the day he arrived. He is a special person. ”
For veteran Mark Giordano, who is in something like a hometown veteran with questions about his future, he may relate to the emotional upheavals that Spezza is going through after failing to lift the group over that hurdle in the first round.
“We are both very similar in the sense that we are both from Toronto and have our family here. We grew up here. So I’m looking forward to sitting down with Spezz and having a good conversation over the next little part, “Giordano said. “But I’m sure a lot goes through his mind, just like me.”
Although uncertainty surrounds Giordano’s future in Toronto, for various reasons, given his place in the game. A former Norris trophy winner and captain of two previous franchises, Giordano has proven this season that he can still be an influential player in the back, with the 38-year-old averaging more than 20 minutes a night in a series of Leafs’ first rounds.
Whether Toronto will try to get it back, and whether they can afford to do so, is in the air. But as with Spezza, the attractiveness of this connection to his hometown leaves the door open, Giordano said.
“Everyone knows I’m from Toronto, I love it here, I loved my time here. So we’ll see what happens, “said the veteran. “I will talk to my agent here next week or later. It is still quite fresh from the loss. But I will talk to him and go from there. Obviously, I don’t think it’s a secret that I had a good time here. “
Whether in blue and white, or for the fourth franchise of his nearly two-decade career, the former Calgary leader Flams said he was confident of what he could still do at that level.
“I feel I can still contribute, I can still help the team move forward, push the needle forward. “I always say that the moment I don’t think I’m contributing in a positive way, I won’t go on,” he said. “But I feel pretty good in my game and I feel like I’m a person who can also help young boys along the way. I felt good and I will continue to train hard and I hope to continue playing here for a few more years. “
And perhaps because of this consistency, this struggle to remain a key player even in the twilight of his career, he respects the journey his fellow veteran from his hometown has traveled to Toronto.
“I mean, he’s been a top guy in the league for a long time,” Giordano told Spca. seeing how it adapts and plays so well in this role is really impressive. Not many boys in the league can do that at the end of their careers. “
Since a lot of unpacking and dissection has to be done, before Dubas and Co. to decide who will return and who will move on, it is too early to know whether someone from Giordano or Spca will be in the colors of Maple Leafs in October. But for Jake Mousin, another experienced leader who returned to Ontario with the wisdom to share and a young team to lead, the value his fellow veterans brought to his time here is clear.
“It’s good to have veteran boys in the room,” Muzin told the couple. “They calm things down, they say things when they have to be said. They keep the boys honest.
“And two boys from Toronto. I think that means a little more for these guys. “
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