Mikhail Grabovski’s upper lip was starting to swell, straining the eight fresh stitches that ran like a railway track under his nose. It was the kind of wound you might expect if he’d been, say, in a Vancouver street brawl or had a nasty encounter with a Kostitsyn.

That the cut came from a puck chipped into his mug off a faceoff did nothing to diminish the symbolism. Grabovski has shown up ready to bleed for the Maple Leafs this season; ready to play some hard-nosed hockey.

Coming into the season, the big question among several doubts about the Leafs was the centre position.

When Brian Burke demoted rookie pivot Nazem Kadri to the Marlies after the prospect failed to impress during camp, the general manager hinted that he might make a move for a centre, noting his scouts were “scouring” the waiver wire and watching other clubs to see what might shake loose.

After a 5-1 throttling of a tired and very overmatched Ottawa Senators squad Saturday, the Leafs are two games into an undefeated season — their best start in 11 years — with Grabovski and Tim Brent playing so well on the second and third lines, that anxiety has been downgraded considerably. Toronto is no longer suffering from pivot envy.

On the top unit, Tyler Bozak has picked up where he left off last campaign and Mike Zigomanis has shown himself to be a faceoff wiz playing in the four hole.

But it’s Grabovski, always a bit of an enigma, who has been a revelation.

He was extremely good in this shellacking of the visiting Senators. Grabovski was very effective and tenacious on the forecheck, causing the opening goal, by linemate Nikolai Kulemin, by hounding Jason Spezza. Though he finished with just one assist, the 26-year-old made several tape-to-tape passes that easily could have resulted in Toronto pushing the score towards double figures.

“(Grabovski) is a gritty player. I love playing with him,” said Grabovski’s other winger, Clarke MacArthur, who finished with a goal and an assist. “He definitely doesn’t shy away from the corners or anything like that.”

Grabovski, pressed to explain why he has shown up seemingly ready to get much more involved, falls back on the simple fact that he is “very happy” on the team and in the city where he has a much higher comfort level than last season. He has a girlfriend in Toronto, he’s developed a peer group here and he is pleased with how he has meshed with his linemates Kulemin and MacArthur.

“Everybody is playing really good. My wingers are very fast players and it’s easy for me to move the puck,” he said.

“I’m playing a little faster than before but everybody is playing a different game. We play simple. We work hard. We listen to the coach. We shoot the puck and play aggressive.”

Brent was a surprise addition to the roster but not for his scoring. Nevertheless, he picked up his second goal in two games, picking off a clearing attempt by Ottawa goaltender Pascal Leclaire, and putting it a few inches over the line before the netminder could pull it out again. It was declared a goal, Toronto’s fifth, after a painstakingly-long video review.

It is, however, Brent’s overall work ethic and penalty killing that has impressed and alleviated the need for help in the middle.

“I’m here to prove every day that I belong here,” said Brent.

The Leafs maintained their momentum from a 3-2 victory over Montreal in their opener, playing a virtually-flawless first 47 minutes or so.

It’s difficult to remember a game between these two clubs where so much of it played out below the hash marks in the Ottawa end. The Leafs were all over the visitors from the opening faceoff, and had a 3-0 lead after two periods. At that point, they’d outshot the Sens 31-12.

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“We wanted to put their defencemen under pressure all night long,” said coach Ron Wilson. “We managed to do that. They played Friday (in a 2-1 loss to Buffalo at Ottawa) so we wanted to come out hard and quick and jump their D and let them know it was going to be a long night.”

The domination was well earned. The Leafs displayed excellent passing, smart dump-ins and battled hard for every loose puck. It would have been tough to identify a Toronto player who wasn’t playing well.

“They might have been (tired) but we really didn’t give them a chance to get going. We finished our hits everywhere,” said MacArthur. “That’s what we want to do. We want to be rough. We want to slow guys down a lot. Finishing hits all night wears teams out and that’s what we want to do.”