There was a day late in February of 2016 when only three people were on the ice one afternoon at Ricoh Coliseum: myself, Toronto Maple Leafs skills guru Darryl Belfry and Connor Brown. The latter was putting in extra work as he often did, but the day had a decidedly different feel to it.



He was miserable. And if you know the kid at all, that was nothing like his general demeanor. He still worked his tail off, but had he so much as lost an edge that day, I thought there was a chance he might take off his skate and cut somebody.



Given how few of us were there to be cut, I was concerned.



That was the first day I had a real sense of his competitiveness. I had seen it in practices and games, but I don’t think I actually understood how badly Brown wanted his NHL dreams to be realized. At the time, he still hadn’t seen the league for so much as a game.



Around that time, you may recall, the Leafs were drowning and drowning rapidly. The life raft...