A tough start to stomach
Bozak a long way from form, even before food bug
The idea that our ever-faster world can pass you by in a blur is hardly foreign to any NHL veteran who has felt the wind of Connor McDavid in full flight.
But Patrick Marleau, though he was drafted into the NHL in the year the 20-year-old McDavid was born, is hardly some decrepit victim of regular blowbys. At age 38, he still skates beautifully alongside Toronto’s cadre of 20-something speedsters.
When those young speedsters send Marleau a text, mind you, the admiration can turn to admonishment. Auston Matthews, Toronto’s 20-year-old star, was laughing about this on Tuesday, when he let it be known that Marleau hasn’t quite grasped the intricacies of techno-jargon.
Though Matthews said Marleau seems “38 going on 20” watching movies and playing cards on the road, there are newish trends that seem to have eluded the father of four.
“I texted (Marleau) something and I said, like, ’HBU’ — ‘how ’bout you?’ (Marleau) asked Mitch (Marner) what it meant. And we thought that was the funniest thing,” Matthews told reporters Tuesday. “Because we’re 20 years old — obviously all these little shortcuts, we’re so familiar with them, we know all of them. But Patty was a little bit confused. We had a good laugh about it for a couple of weeks.”
Getting old can make you a laughingstock in a hurry when your professional peers are cutting-edge risers. But if Marleau has weathered it well beyond the occasional joke, there remain Maple Leafs who very much need to prove their on-ice vitality despite their advancing age.
Tyler Bozak counts himself among that group. A third of the way through the season, the ninth-year centreman, who will turn 32 in March, is languishing through his worst statistical effort in a long while.
Coming off a career season in which he piled up 55 points, thanks in part to the presence of the linedriving Marner, Bozak so far has managed just four goals and 11 points in 27 games — on pace for a meagre 12 goals and 33 points.
He was sixth on the team in scoring last season. He’s currently running 12th, with no less than three defencemen — Morgan Rielly, Jake Gardiner and Ron Hainsey — providing more offence. Given it’s a contract year for Bozak, who’ll be an unrestricted free agent in the summer, it’s hardly a matter worthy of a text-chain “LOL.”
“It’s one-third of the season. If you look at your numbers today and you multiply ’em by three, that tells you who you are unless you do something about it,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock was saying Tuesday. “So the guys who are off to a great start want to replicate it. And the guys that aren’t — they want to fix it.”
Precisely what’s behind Bozak’s downturn isn’t easy to figure. Maybe it’s a bit of age-related decline speckled with the effects of Marner’s early-season lull, which in turn has saddled Bozak with a third-line role averaging less than 15 minutes a game, the lowest nightly volume of his career. And maybe it’s all complicated by a couple of years’ worth of life changes.
This past summer Bozak got mar- ried. Two years ago he and his wife, Molly, welcomed a son, Kanon.
“You lose sleep as a parent, for sure,” Bozak said. “Just balancing stuff at the rink with things you’re doing at home is a challenge. But it’s really nice when things aren’t going well at the rink for you to get home. Obviously your son doesn’t care how you played. He’s just happy to see you.”
All of this is not to say the Leafs won’t be happy to see Bozak back in the lineup for Wednesday’s home game against the Flames — hardly a guarantee, given that Bozak missed Saturday’s game in Vancouver with what he described as a bout of food poisoning contracted Friday.
“Quite a bad case, actually. Throwing up for a few days. Thought I was over it (Monday), came to the rink and when I got here started throwing up again. So went back home,” Bozak said. “I can’t pinpoint exactly what it was. But hopefully I don’t eat that ever again.”
William Nylander, who has minimal experience at centre, took Bozak’s spot in line rushes Monday. For all Toronto’s forward depth, they’re not exactly stocked up the middle. So Bozak’s presence on the ice at the team’s Etobicoke practice pad Tuesday, when he hinted that another day of proper hydration and good nutrition will likely have him game-ready by Wednesday, was a welcome sight.
“We kind of go into scramble mode with lines and stuff (without Bozak),” Matthews said. “Because he’s a pretty important part of our team.”
He’d be even more important if he started producing more impressively, of course. Even Bozak’s usually stellar faceoff numbers are down. Last year his 56.7 per cent win percentage on draws ranked with the game’s elite performers. Among NHLers with at least 1,200 faceoff attempts, only Patrice Bergeron, Ryan O’Reilly and Ryan Kesler won a bigger share of puck drops in 201617. He’s at 50.5 per cent this season, 42nd among players who’ve taken at least 300 turns in the circle.
“That was one of Bozie’s big strengths in the past,” Babcock said. “The new rules (around faceoffs) haven’t helped him as much. But we need him to get back to (last season’s) form, obviously.”
Said Bozak: “I obviously haven’t got the numbers that I’ve wanted personally. But the way the team has performed has been pretty good. It’s a long season. You’re going to have stretches where everything goes in for you and everything doesn’t. Just hopefully I can produce a little more individually.”
Babcock lauded Bozak for choosing to “own” his underperformance. The coach’s prescription to what ails the centreman was a familiar elixir.
“You get to work,” the coach said. “You work every day in practice. You work every day in the gym. It’s not luck . . . You work harder. You get more. Pretty soon you play more. And you start feeling better, and it just happens for yourself.” Put another way: GBTW — “Get back to work.” On Wednesday night and beyond, the Maple Leafs are hoping Bozak begins to more emphatically prove he’s still up to the job.