When Jim Nill worked for the Detroit Red Wings, his house was a 10-minute drive to the Compuware Arena, home of the Plymouth Whalers.

He’d often go to junior games, taking stock of the emerging players, paying more attention to those with serious talent. Tyler Seguin was one of those kids he couldn’t take his eyes off of.

“I knew him well enough from his Plymouth days,” said Nill, the first-year general manager of the Dallas Stars. “I saw him lots in his draft year. I met with him quite a few times. I know a lot of people around that area. So when we had a chance to get him, I knew what I needed to know. I asked a lot of questions. I didn’t have a lot of concerns.”

For years, Nill was everybody’s general manager-in-waiting. In his first year on the job, he pulled off a franchise- and reputation-changing trade: He brought in the controversial Seguin from the Boston Bruins, paid a reasonable — if not in retrospect, light — price to do so and, unlike the Maple Leafs and so many teams in the NHL, has his first-line centre for now and for the future.

Acquiring Seguin wasn’t Nill’s first choice, he admits. He, like a lot of GMs, made a play for Vinny Lecavalier. He thought he needed that kind of veteran presence at centre.

But when Lecavalier wound up signing in Philadelphia after being bought out in Tampa Bay, Nill and his staff started going over rosters trying to determine who might be available, and at what price.

They targeted the 21-year-old Seguin — and it has worked out brilliantly for the Stars.

“We looked at Seguin and we knew our weakness was at centre. And you looked a Boston’s roster and saw they had (Patrice) Bergeron and (David) Krejci and Tyler couldn’t play centre on their first two lines. And if they didn’t like him on the wing...that made him available.

“I watched him a lot in Plymouth. To me, he was a natural centre. I didn’t see him as a winger. They (Bruins) were trying to make their roster work and we were trying to do the same, so everything just fit.

“The timing was right for both teams. We had the right assets. They wanted a winger and Loui Eriksson is a great player, with good cap numbers. And they didn’t want (Seguin), I guess, knocking on their doors in the East. It helped that we were a Western Conference team. And we gave them some good prospects (Reilly Smith had 15 goals for the Bruins entering Monday’s play.) It was just right timing for us.”

What he doesn’t say: The Bruins tired of Seguin, marginalizing him in the post-season, uncertain about his level of maturity. In just a few short years, he had worn out his welcome with the Bruins.

Nill knew enough to trust his knowledge and instincts on Seguin.

“You hear things in this business,” said Nill. “You hear a lot of things. It’s always a 50-50 thing with me. If you hear things, there’s probably something going on — but it’s probably not as bad as people are saying it is. That’s been my experience. It’s never as bad as it is.

“On the flip side, you have to understand he’s 21 years old. You know how young that is? And I know there’s a lot of temptations out there and he’s got a lot of maturing to do and he knows that.

“We looked at it — I was willing to take that risk knowing what I was getting in return. Sometimes the expectations we put on these young guys are not fair at times. Patience and expectations — they really get crossed up in the sporting business. And there are examples everywhere. We’re in a competitive business and there’s pressure to win, but you can’t speed up Mother Nature and we try to way too often.

“For us to find a player of that magnitude, we would have had to bottom out. Dallas, for the last six or so years, has been a bubble team, not good enough, not bad enough. When you’re picking 10-15 every year, you don’t get those (great) players.”

It looks like they have acquired a great player in Seguin, whom everyone knows by now was taken in one of the draft picks the Leafs relinquished in the now-infamous Phil Kessel trade.

The established Kessel has scored 20 goals thus far this season. The kid, Seguin, playing centre regularly for the first time in the NHL, has scored 21. His emergence comes too late for this year’s Olympic team, but if NHL players are involved four years from now, Seguin might be a Canadian sure thing.

What a turnabout this season has been: From dubious winger to first-line centre; from troubled kid to apparent model player; from a winger the coach can’t trust to the game-breaker the Stars need; from outcast to team leader.

And, so far, without the off-ice questions that plagued him in Boston.

“He made some bad choices in the past,” said Nill. “He understands that now.

“When we brought him down to Dallas, he reached out to me. He admitted he made some mistakes. He talked about being on that team, and how everybody was married, and he’d walk out after games and he’d think, ‘Where am I going?’

“And he made some wrong choices. But what I’ve found so far — he has a huge heart and he wants to be a good person and do the right things. We’ve had some great talks. He’s an honest kid. He’s willing to accept he made some wrong decisions and learn from them. We haven’t had any kind of problem with him at all.”

The Hartford Whalers traded Chris Pronger away at the age of 21 because they didn’t like the way he was playing or living. The Seguin deal by Boston seems somewhat similar. It can be franchise-changing for the Stars, and in Dallas it brought Nill instant credibility, as if he didn’t already have that.

Nill has an open-door policy with his players in Dallas, and especially with Seguin.

“I told him, ‘I’m here to talk about anything, on the ice, off the ice.’ He trusts me. We have good talks.

“What’s really impressed me about him, considering all we heard, is his maturity. Tyler is a student of the game, a very intelligent player. When he was traded here, he started watching films of Jamie Benn and seeing how they would fit together. He studies the game a lot. I know that surprises people.”

And off the ice?

So far, nothing to report.

“I talk to Mike Modano a lot down here,” said Nill. “He told me if they had cellphones and camera phones back when he played, he would have gone through the same thing Tyler did in Boston. I would have. You would have. We all would have. Social media has changed the world. It’s made life more complicated for these kids.

“I’ve told Tyler the same thing I’ve told most of our players: Remain humble. Let’s keep trying to do things right. It’s about coming to work every day and making the right choices on and off the ice. He’s doing that. And look at the results we’re getting from him.”

steve.simmons@sunmedia.ca

twitter.com/simmonssteve

STARS’ PERFORMER

As of Jan 5, Tyler Seguin is ...

5th among Canadian forwards in goals scored

9th in points

4th in even-strength goals

6th in even-strength points

1st in road goals

2nd in road points