You have to dig pretty deep to find the last elite superstars for Canadian NHL teams.

The true, best of the best, Hall of Fame bound, game changers. The multiple Hart Trophy-contending types.

Since 1993, there hasn’t only been a 24-year Stanley Cup drought in this country. There has been a drought of elite talent taking over games, especially in the postseason.

Instead, Canadians have spent each spring watching Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy; Martin Brodeur; Nick Lidstrom, Steve Yzerman and Pavel Datsyuk; and later Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin; and Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews elevate their franchises to the best of the best. Denver, New Jersey and Detroit, then Pittsburgh and Chicago – spoiled with not only multiple championships but multiple Hall of Famers.

The closest thing we have had in this country, in more than two decades of NHL postseason play, is the Sedin twins, and yes they are certainly terrific talents. But in their careers, they have 78 (Henrik) and 71 (Daniel) playoff points, spread over 17 years, which is outside the top 50 in playoff scoring over this span.

There has been Daniel Alfredsson and Mats Sundin, too, for a time.

There hasn’t been anything like what could be coming.

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Everything leading into Tuesday’s game in Toronto was laser focused on Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine. Both dutifully gave long media sessions about the game and what it meant to face the other burgeoning star. Both of their coaches talked at length about the rivalry and the growing debate over what separates the two top Calder Trophy candidates.

What was unique was the game itself delivered on that hype. It was a runaway kaleidoscope of everything a fan could hope for, 62.5 minutes of lead changes and beautiful goals and big hits and controversy and end-to-end rushes.

But it also had the next generation of talents, on two Canadian NHL teams, leading the way.

Afterward, there were also quotes like this, about what it means to have a player like Matthews – who had three assists, including the primary on Jake Gardiner’s overtime winner – on the Maple Leafs.

“A lot. He’s obviously put Toronto on the map again,” said veteran winger Leo Komarov, who has witnessed the extreme highs and lows of being a Leaf in his 230 games in the city. “It’s a lot of media around him. And he’s honestly a great guy and an unbelievable player. You can see that he played in a pro league last year – the way he plays and behaves himself and talks to the media and does everything. He’s a smart guy. It’s just nice to see how he plays.”

Not to be outdone, this was Jets coach Paul Maurice on Laine, who scored two remarkable goals with blistering, pinpoint shots from the high slot to give him 30 in his first 55 games in the NHL. He became only the third player since Teemu Selanne and Eric Lindros (way back in 1993) to hit that mark that fast.

“We don’t talk to Patty anymore,” Maurice said. “We just talk to everybody else – tell them to give him the puck. What a special, special talent. He’s a good man, too. He’s a good young kid. He’s got lots of room to get bigger and stronger. He’s strong now, but this guy’s got another 10, 15 pounds that he’s going to put on in his legs and his back. And when that happens he will get all of the shots off that he wants. Special, special player.”

Mark Masters goes to work. Credit: Tom Szczerbowski-USA TODAY Sports

Canadians have been dying for these types of talents for decades. For years, financials decimated their NHL teams, with two relocating and several others struggling due to a sagging dollar. Then, once the salary cap came in, most of the Canadian teams suffered from poor management and even poorer planning.

Several struggling U.S. teams made plans to rebuild through the draft, and they went on to win big, often with young Canadian stars leading the way.

Now there are three hopefuls in this country, in Matthews, Laine and Connor McDavid in Edmonton.

A Canadian team has not had even a Calder winner in 21 years, not since Alfredsson – a 23-year-old sixth-round pick – shocked the league back in 1996 with a 61-point season out of nowhere. He tied for 68th in scoring that year, 100 points behind Mario Lemieux in the race for the Art Ross.

The seven Canadian NHL teams haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1993 and their top stars have rarely been the NHL’s very best talents. That may be changing.

This year’s Calder push is something altogether different. Laine trails only Crosby in goals – by three. Matthews is two back of that and due for more, given how well he generates chances. Both could win the Rocket Richard, with a hot finish to the year.

After their big nights in Toronto on Tuesday, they sit 13th and 18th in the scoring race, at 18 and 19 years old.

Even with nearly two months to play, they are already in the top 20 all-time in points produced by teenage rookies. Adjusted for era, their year-end point totals – Laine is on pace for 73 points, Matthews 72 – will rank among the best ever produced by players this young and inexperienced.

More than that, however, they are freaks of nature. Laine is 6-foot-5 and 206 pounds and impossibly graceful when he bows to whip a shot toward the goal with his new-age stick. Matthews is 6-foot-3 and 216, but the very portrait of finesse, a Datsyuk-type takeaway artist blessed with Sakic’s shot and superlative hand-eye coordination.

With the way technology has influence the sport, it makes sense that the next generation play the game differently, but it’s still disconcerting to watch. They’re impossibly talented for their ages, especially with how accustomed we have become to the notion of development and step-by-step progression.

Both have skipped most of the steps to get right to the top, the way Crosby and Alex Ovechkin seemed to a decade ago.

“They’re both real special players – size, skill, look like they’re going to be significant generational-type players, as long as they’ve got the drive train to keep working,” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. “And they look to me like they both do. They’re exciting to watch. And obviously they have to worry about Matthews and we have to worry about Laine.”

“I don’t know if we’ve ever seen players this good, this young, be as good as we told everybody they were going to be,” Maurice added.

The only shame of it all is that they will, barring realignment, rarely play one another. This can’t be Crosby and Ovechkin, going head-to-head in big games in their conference every year. The two Leafs-Jets games this season have both been fantastic: 5-4 overtime contests – in an era of 3-2 games – decided by top young talent.

Laine has five goals in the two meetings. Matthews has four assists.

The debate around them, the two top picks in 2016, is only starting to heat up, with June’s Calder announcement set to be controversial no matter who wins.

“I think they’ll be writing about that for 20 years, won’t they?” Babcock mused.

Let’s hope so. Let’s hope it means a lot more games like this one.

Let’s hope it means they keep delivering, for cities and teams that have long needed something like this to cheer for.