On the day of the deal, the Maple Leaf who never was waited for a telephone call that never came.

“It would have been nice for somebody to call,” Raffi Torres said on the telephone from San Jose, half-kidding, half-not. “I would have thought that might have happened.

“I know it was just a paper transaction. My GM, Doug Wilson, called to tell me what was going on. I never heard from the Leafs. Never heard a thing.”

His phone was ringing non-stop that day in late February, buzzing with text messages from family and old friends, from people he grew up around, most of them learning of his trade to Toronto — just not of the unusual circumstances.

“I was excited for about five seconds,” said the Markham native. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know anything but Leafs. They were my team. I was crazy about them. Wendel Clark. Doug Gilmour. Mike Gartner. Those were my guys. Then I realized what this was all about.

“It is what it is. I understand the business.”

It’s one thing to understand the business. It’s another to be a central part of a trade that doesn’t send you anywhere but limbo. Torres became the contract that wasn’t necessarily named later in the deal that sent two second-round draft picks to the Leafs in exchange for Roman Polak and Nick Spaling. The Leafs didn’t want the controversial 34-year-old. They are basically eating his expiring salary to make the arrangement work. They didn’t even want to place him with their budding AHL team.

For now, Torres is a diminishing NHL player with no team to call his own. He trains daily and diligently in San Jose, working to get his injured knee back into shape, not knowing if there will be a place for him to play anymore.

He’ll be 35 as next season begins, has spent more time either suspended or injured than he has playing the past three years, and yet he still believes — hockey players always do — that he has something to contribute.

Once upon a time, he was a force — physical, capable, speedy, unpredictable and erratic, so hard on the puck and yet capable of scoring.

He was the fifth-overall pick in the 2000 NHL draft, one of the least-memorable drafts in history. He once scored 27 goals for an Edmonton Oilers team that played for a Stanley Cup. That was 11 years and six Oilers rebuilds ago. He scored 19 his first year in Columbus, scored 14 for a Vancouver team that legitimately should have won the Stanley Cup and 15 in his first year in Phoenix. “I played in two AHL championships,” said Torres. “I played on a lot of teams that won.”

The biggest surprise, looking back, in light of his reputation: In parts of 13 NHL seasons, he never had more than 88 penalty minutes in any year. In between moments he wishes he could have back, he was a hard-nosed player of some quality. He only had 148 penalty minutes in three years of playing junior for Stan Butler in Brampton.

“I could get to pucks quick,” said Torres. “That was my strength. I could get in on the forecheck. That’s always been my game.”

The Leafs are his eighth official NHL team, the first one he won’t play for. He just sold his home in San Jose. His last NHL suspension was for 41 games. The one before that was for 20.

“Bad timing and bad judgment,” he said of the head-hit suspensions, the knocks from behind. “You look at my history and you see bad suspensions. I put myself in those situations. I don’t blame anyone for them. I played the game on the edge.”

A game he isn’t ready to walk away from.

He is training now in San Jose and will move his regimen to Toronto this summer. The past year or two have not gone well, with a bum knee and multiple frustrations. He tried to rush back, found himself suspended again, pushed himself hard to come back too soon, wound up with a staph infection in his knee.

“It’s just been one thing after another,” said Torres. “I feel like it’s all getting behind me.

“The truth is, I feel great right now. I’m taking the time off mentally to rebuild my foundation.

“I’m not ready to quit. I want to keep playing, but I also understand where I am in my career. You don’t have to tell me. I know the business.

“If it doesn’t work out, if there’s no place to go, I’ll know I left it all out there. It’s been tough on my family at times. You can imagine what I’ve put them through over the years. I have to think of my quality of life after hockey. I’ve got two kids, a little crazier than I am, they tell me. But I want to keep playing.”

What he really wanted was a shot with his beloved Maple Leafs. A chance to wear the blue and white. Just once, even. “I would have liked that,” he said.

But nobody called. Not even to say hello.

“I just want to play,” said Raffi Torres, with no contract beyond June. “I want to get healthy and play. I don’t mind riding the buses. I would do that. It’s a pretty good life, making a living playing hockey. I’m not ready to give it up.”

ssimmons@postmedia.com