Spezza’s still got his zeal for the game

36-YEAR-OLD’S ROLE IS DIFFERENT WITH LEAFS, BUT HE’S HAPPY TO ‘KEEP PLAYING’

This is how old Jason Spezza happens to be: Auston Matthews was three when Spezza was the second pick in the 2001 NHL Draft.

Mitch Marner was five when Spezza scored his first of 332 goals. Six different men have coached the Maple Leafs in his time in pro hockey, dating back to the late Pat Quinn.

And this is how experienced he is: Spezza is a father to four daughters. The rest of the Leafs roster combined have three children, and that includes the recent addition to the John Tavares family. Spezza broke in to the Ottawa Senators lineup in the same season in which Mike Babcock began his NHL career coaching the Mighty Ducks in Anaheim. That long ago.

And now here, near the finish line, the one-time star with career earnings of more than US$87 million, the 18th highest paid player in hockey history, is playing a bit part with a somewhat undefined role with the Toronto Maple Leafs. And smiling on his way through training camp, maybe his last camp. because normally that’s what Spezza, 36, does.

Ron Hainsey is gone to Ottawa. Patrick Marleau has gone home to California and who knows where hockey wise. The old guys from the Leafs dressing room have moved on. Spezza has inherited the role of sage around the dressing room and maybe even on the ice. The Leafs aren’t sure how much he has left, but mostly they’ll settle for the occasional faceoff won, some power play time, some centring the fourth line, moving up in the lineup if need be on occasion: Spezza has played 1,065 games in the NHL, averaged 70 points a season over 16 years.

Once he had as many as 92 points, which is more than Tavares has ever scored. Once he had 71 assists in a season: Last year, Marner had 68. That’s the kind of skill he had to display along with his length. Production-wise, he’s been where many of these young Maple Leafs hope to go.

With one thing missing. He’s played for the Stanley Cup. Like them, he hasn’t won. And he yearns to have that championship ring.

“I think about it all the time,” Spezza said in a lengthy interview. “That’s why I’m still going. That’s why you want to change your role. You want to stick around, you want to keep playing. When you haven’t won (the Cup) and you’ve played this long, it becomes all you think about.

“You just wonder (looking back) what could you have done differently? What could you have changed? What adjustment could you have made? Got close a couple of other times. Those three years we had (in Ottawa), we were knocking on the door and probably should have won a few years and just didn’t get it done.”

Now he comes to Toronto as the lowest paid player on the Leafs. A homecoming, really. He’s already made the big money and by hockey standards, this is the small money now. But none of this is about money. It’s about a game he loves and can’t leave. It’s about finding a way to win with the team he grew up watching. We started hearing about Spezza as a minor hockey whiz kid some 20 years ago. We saw him all those years with the Senators, all those interviews riding the exercise bike. Now he’s a sound voice of experience on a team with not a lot of it.

“It’s a challenge for me to find a role here and be part of such a young, exciting group ... It’s a challenge and that’s fine. I understand that.”

It’s hard for a professional athlete to be great and then pushed to the fringe. It’s more than an adjustment. Some can’t do it, consumed with what used to be. Some can’t adjust to going from first line to fourth, from power play to press box. Some get angry, some blame: Athletes aren’t known for being particularly self aware.

Spezza seems to understand the process better than most, and from what he’s already lived with playing the last five seasons in Dallas.

“This doesn’t happen overnight,” he said of dealing with his hockey mortality. “You go through a lot. You demand a lot of yourself. I’ve produced my whole career and you have high expectations of where you’re at and where you should be in the lineup.

“Now I’ve played that role for a couple of years and I feel comfortable doing it. It’s basically comes down to, do you want to keep playing, or do you want to hang on to the old days? I want to keep playing.”

There isn’t much Spezza hasn’t seen in his pro career. He played with Hall of Famers and future Hall of Famers like Dominik Hasek, Daniel Alfredsson, Marian Hossa and Zdeno Chara in Ottawa, among others. He played with Tyler Seguin and Jamie Benn in Dallas. He knows what it is to be surrounded by young talent.

“These guys (here) are elite, elite young players,” said Spezza. “They’re barely over 20. We’ve come into a window here where the team has a chance to win and get over some past failures.” And he wants to play whatever part he can in making a difference.

“It’s different,” said Spezza. “You learn to judge your game differently that you did in the past. You get used to producing every night and having a big role and as you get older, you have to kind of judge yourself on different things. You have to look around the room sometimes and see who needs to get picked up that day. Your role sort of broadens. You have to focus on your game and make yourself ready to go, while thinking of the bigger picture.”

IT’S A CHALLENGE FOR ME TO FIND A ROLE HERE AND BE PART OF SUCH A YOUNG, EXCITING GROUP.

STAN BEHAL / POSTMEDIA NEWS FILES Jason Spezza has averaged 70 points a season over 16 years, but will have to find his niche as a member of the supporting cast in Toronto.