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By Lance Hornby

Fedor Gordeev wasn’t at Maple Leafs development camp five minutes before the club put him to good use.

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The Russian-born, Toronto-raised behemoth blue liner was slotted into an interpreter’s role for a few campers who came from his birth country and needed help with off-ice matters from filling out forms to explaining baseball when all the players went to last Friday’s Blue Jays game.

“We have testing going on and they’re always looking for me, going ‘come here, come here,’” the 6-foot-6 Gordeev said with a laugh. “The baseball game was fun. They didn’t even know what it was, but they’re picking it up pretty well.”

In a couple of years, Gordeev wants to be helping out as intended when Toronto selected him in the fifth round last month in Chicago. It’s no secret the Leafs want to get bigger on defence, having drafted seven the past two years and chosen 6-foot-7 Eemeli Rasanen a couple of rounds ahead of Gordeev, but the latter might be more of a project.