Blue And White Beat: Brent a worthy choice for Leafs Masterton nominee.
The Leafs don’t employ a post-game tradition of rewarding their hardest-working player with either a hard hat or shovel, the items of choice bestowed respectively by the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins for their deserving players as seen in HBO’s 24/7 series.
If Toronto ever decided to award such a prop, it would likely remain fixated in Tim Brent’s dressing room stall.
Earlier today Brent, 27, was named the Leafs nominee for the Bill Masterton Trophy, the award that goes to the player who best exemplifies “perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.”
Brent has compiled just 33 penalty minutes heading in to the team’s final game of the season Saturday night against Montreal, fulfilling the sportsmanship criterion.
But in the eyes of Leafs fans, his selfless shot-blocking prowess vaults him into the position of the team’s unheralded leader in perseverance and dedication.
Two games in particular highlight the Cambridge, Ontario native’s willingness to pay the sacrifice.
Last week on March 31, the Leafs were at TD Garden in a 3-3 deadlock against Boston, killing a penalty in the final minute of the third period. With Toronto clinging to their playoff lives, Brent blocked a pair of shots off the stick of Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara. His name might be familiar; earlier this year at the All-Star game, Chara broke the hardest shot record at the skills competition, clocking in at 105.9 miles per hour.
The successful penalty-kill gave the Leafs a chance to gain two points, which they did thanks to Nazem Kadri’s shootout winner.
However, it was the matchup on February 3 at Air Canada Centre versus Carolina in which Brent’s legacy will be cemented.
Within a sequence lasting just under a half-minute during a Hurricanes 5-on-3 man advantage, Brent blocked three shots in succession; one from Jeff Skinner and two off the stick of star forward Eric Staal.
The final shot in particular was the one that forced Brent to pay the ‘ultimate’ price. Yes, it landed ‘down there’. “The men in the room would understand how much those hurt,” quipped Brent to a slew of reporters after the game.
It’s no wonder that Brent has led all Leafs forwards with a total of 155:31 of shorthanded ice time this season.
To borrow an interesting analogy from former Minnesota Wild coach Jacques Lemaire, it could be argued that Brent contributes much like a 50-goal scorer. Readers are now gasping at this paragraph the same way that critics smirked at Lemaire when he gave such props to checking centre Wes Walz. And then he gave his explanation: “(Walz) scores 15 goals, but he saves 35 goals to his team.”
Brent has eight goals. Whether he has actually prevented 42 is open for discussion. But, you get the point.
Before Leafs fans get excited about Brent potentially being the only Toronto player to walk off the stage with any hardware at this year’s NHL Awards ceremony in Las Vegas on June 22, it should be noted that he is unlikely to win.
The Masterton is generally awarded to a player who overcomes a critical illness or returns from a career-threatening injury, or extenuating circumstances.
Current Leaf Phil Kessel took home the award in 2007 after successfully undergoing treatment for testicular cancer while with the Bruins. A year later Jason Blake, then with Toronto, was named the Masterton winner in recognition of his commitment to the sport while battling leukemia.
The past two winners, Steve Sullivan in 2009 and Jose Theodore last year, have endured their own hardships; Sullivan a debilitating back injury and Theodore the personal tragedy of losing an infant son.
It’s likely that this year’s Masterton trophy winner will go to either Calgary’s Daymond Langkow – who returned to the ice a week ago after missing over a calendar year of action due to a broken neck – or David Booth of the Florida Panthers, whose concussion suffered at the hands of the Flyers’ Mike Richards is well-documented.
But as far as Toronto’s candidate goes, no one is more worthy than Brent.
If you disagree, try and watch the shot block on Eric Staal again, without grimacing.
Rob Del Mundo is the author of Blue And White Beat, and is a regular columnist at TMLfans.ca
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