Mats Sundin was in a familiar place. Everything was also very different.
It was February 2009. The former captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs was back in his second home — only this time as a member of the opposition.
Sundin had signed with the Vancouver Canucks after 13 seasons under the brightest of spotlights in hockey’s biggest media market.
The Swedish centre jolted out of his hotel bed that cold Saturday morning. Sweat dripped down his brow. In his mind’s eye, a scenario had just played out in the Leafs’ locker room. The crowd was roaring. His team needed him.
And Sundin’s skate laces kept breaking.
“For a team captain, there’s no worse feeling,” he writes. “It’s my perfect nightmare.”
That scene opens Sundin’s book “Home and Away,” which tracks a path that began with his parents and two brothers outside Stockholm and eventually led to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He dives into the pressures and anxieties of being the first European selected No. 1 overall at the NHL draft, getting traded by the Quebec Nordiques to Toronto for franchise icon Wendel Clark, and the turbulent end to his time with the Leafs.
It’s those campaigns with the Original Six club — including the last 11 as captain — that make up the bulk of Sundin’s engaging prose alongside co-author Amy Stuart.
“The Maple Leafs’ history is long and storied and complicated,” he writes. “Leafs Nation is bigger than hockey. It’s its own universe.”
Sundin arrived in Toronto in 1994 after the trade for the hard-nosed Clark. Things didn’t go according to plan early. There was a feeling in many hockey circles back then that teams with an abundance of European talent couldn’t win.
“The first years were a shock,” Sundin said in a phone interview from Stockholm. “Wendel Clark, the most popular Leaf at that point … being traded for him. A lot of challenges to try to earn the respect of the fans.”
That respect would eventually come.
Sundin ended up as the Leafs’ all-time leader in goals (420) and points (987), although current captain Auston Matthews is on course to smash both marks. His 1,349 points across 18 NHL seasons ranks 30th in league history.
Team success, however, would never truly materialize with Toronto.
There were a few memorable playoff runs and a trip to the 2002 Eastern Conference final, but Sundin wasn’t able to get a club with a Cup drought dating back to 1967 over the hump.
And then with his career winding down and Toronto nowhere close to contending in the winter of 2008, uncomfortable questions about his future started to swirl. A media circus ensued.
Sundin had a no-movement clause in his contract. General manager Cliff Fletcher, who made the deal for Clark in 1994, was back with Toronto and aiming to retool the roster.
The veteran executive met with Sundin at the team’s hotel before a game in Carolina and asked if he would agree to be dealt to a contender.
Sundin understood the situation, but the Leafs weren’t that far out of a playoff spot. He declined management’s request with the trade deadline looming.
“Why it was even harder was that I had a really strong season,” Sundin told CP. “And after 13 years with the team, 11 years as the captain, there was so much effort and will to try to win a Stanley Cup as a Toronto Maple Leaf.
“It felt like the right thing to do.”
He also understood the business of the game.
“Toronto had a chance to get some youth,” continued Sundin, who now lives in Stockholm with wife Josephine and their three kids. “But I always saw myself trying to win that Cup for the Maple Leaf fans.”
The club, however, failed to make the playoffs and Sundin missed the end of the season with an injury. He took the summer to contemplate his next move, which he thought was retirement.
But eventually the fire reignited, Sundin got back training and signed with the Canucks.
Fast-forward a few months later and he was receiving a standing ovation at Air Canada Centre in Toronto.
Later that night, the game was on his stick in the shootout. There was no chance Sundin would miss.
“I spent 15 years imagining my last game in Toronto,” he writes. “In my dream version, my final game was playing for the Stanley Cup. We win the Cup in front of a home crowd, and an entire city unleashes before our eyes.”
Sundin played his final NHL season in Vancouver. The Cup never materialized, but that night was special, if not strange.
“I did score the winning goal,” he adds later. “But it wasn’t the dream ending. There’s no Cup to hoist, only a flight to catch.”
