TORONTO – The last time Michael Peca was on the ice here at Air Canada Centre, he had to be helped off it after Darcy Tucker ripped up his knee with a dirty hit in Game 5 of the playoffs last year.
“Let the circus begin,” Peca said as he emerged from the locker room into the crushing pack of media waiting for him before last night’s Islanders-Leafs clash.
On his first step onto the rink here yesterday as he came out of the tunnel for the morning skate, Peca fell flat in front of a capacity crowd of chirping, local school kids.
With the Islanders, and Shawn Bates especially, doubled out in laughter, Peca reached down and removed the guard still on his right skate that made traction on the ice impossible. The center of attention here, because he’s from Toronto and because of that Tucker hit, Peca tried to throw the cloth skate guard into the stands with a giant, toothless grin across his face.
So was it someone on the team having fun at the captain’s expense or was Peca so wrapped up in it all that he forgot to take the guard off his skate?
“You know everybody thought that,” Peca said. “But I was just having fun with the kids. I thought they’d like that.”
You would have thought that someone returning to the scene of Tucker’s crime would have been a little more serious about coming back, but Peca’s a leader by example and has always kept things light around the team. Yesterday was no different and he reminded everyone that last year’s playoffs happened a long time ago.
“It’s almost 10 months ago,” Peca said. “A lot has happened between now and then and we’re now focused on this year’s playoffs.”
A big part of why the Islanders can look ahead to this year’s postseason has been the play of their captain since he returned from the five-month knee and shoulder recoveries that saw him miss the first 20 games of the year. On Monday, Peter Laviolette endorsed No. 27 for the Hart Trophy, awarded to the league’s MVP.
“There’s really no significance,” Peca said of playing the Leafs, who were dominated Dec. 6 at the Coliseum by an angry Islanders team. “I think the big picture is they’re ahead of us in the standings.”