Sundin says drop the puck
Big Mats wants to start his Cup hunt without any interruption
By LANCE HORNBY -- Toronto Sun
Mats Sundin had an idyllic summer, including salmon fishing on a Norwegian river and a week of golfing in sunny Spain.
But what he fears is sitting on his rumpa here in Stockholm all season as the window for a Stanley Cup shrinks even more for himself and the village elders on the Maple Leafs. There have been too many wasted opportunities for the Sundin-era Leafs to see another killed by a labour stoppage.
"Our team will be a year older, which is obviously not good," Sundin said as he prepared for Sweden's World Cup opener today against Germany. "It (dead-end collective bargaining talk) doesn't look good. But I'm optimistic. If we don't start in October, maybe we get going in December or January."
Coming up on age 34, Sundin doesn't have as much mileage on him as war horse teammates Gary Roberts, Joe Nieuwendyk, Alex Mogilny, Brian Leetch and Ed Belfour. But the difference is that those men have Stanley Cup rings.
Sundin, whose slightly receding hairline and old facial nicks certainly stand out in a dressing room full of boisterous young Swedes, would prefer to end his Leafs career one better than Borje Salming, the nice guy Hall of Fame Swede who never won the Big One.
Sundin has never even been to the Cup final and knows he won't get there playing for Djurgarden (a Swedish League option should the National Hockey League season get scrapped). He wants the same experience of countryman Fredrik Modin, once his shy linemate in Toronto, now a battle-hardened Cup champion with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
With the Lightning players well into the champagne the night they beat the Calgary Flames on June 7, Modin's cellphone went off. It was Sundin from Europe, phoning his congratulations.
"Freddie went through some tough times in Toronto," Sundin said, a statement that carried some irony. "He came a long way and developed into a great player. It was about 2 a.m. in Tampa (8 a.m. in Stockholm), when I woke up, saw they'd won and gave him a call.
"I'm not sure if he was (coherent) at that stage of the night after they'd been celebrating, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
In the minds of many, the Leafs took a step backward from their title aspirations during the off-season, opting to re-sign Roberts, Nieuwendyk, Belfour and an underachieving Tomas Kaberle, rather than go after an unprecedented field of free agents. Was Sundin, who became a virtual Leaf for life by signing two multi-year contracts, looking for general manager John Ferguson Jr. to be more aggressive?
"No," Sundin said. "We had a good season with those guys, but not the kind of success we want in playoffs. We were three points behind Tampa (for the Eastern Conference title). It makes you realize how much it means to get first or second in your conference and have home-ice advantage the whole way.
"Tampa might not have won the Cup if Calgary had the home ice and been able to play that seventh game at home."
During recent years, the winners of the Cup have had strong regular seasons, then taken a minimum number of games to get out of their first-round series. The Leafs? They have not won a Presidents' Trophy (for most points), a regular-season conference title and have had one 4-0 series sweep since 1949.
A popular theory is that a season shortened by labour strife would eliminate wear and tear and favour an aging team such as Toronto.
"It won't be a disadvantage, but you ask every Leaf and we all want to see the season start in September/October," Sundin said. "Those of us in the World Cup will want to get right into camp. If the season starts in January, we'll have to deal with it."
For now, Sundin is decked out in blue and gold for Tre Kronor, wearing the C and skedded to start today on a line with Modin and Daniel Alfredsson. If there's just one Cup to be fought for this hockey season, he wants to win it.
