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I like to jump on a philosophical hobby horse every now and then, and I particularly remember once, around the time of the NHL’s first outdoor game, that relates to Mats Sundin.

This was pre-lockout and thus, the issue of obstruction was still front-and-centre in the NHL. No matter what they tried, they could not rid the game of the hooking, holding and interference that unnecessarily slowed down the pace of play – all of which could be traced to heavy-handed coaching tactics of the era. So I put a theory to a number of prominent players in the context of the outdoor game – if this really was an exercise in returning the game to its roots, why not ban coaches from the benches and let the players just play? If you ever watch an NHL practice first hand, you’d be impressed with the overall skill level on display. Even the plumbers, at an NHL level, can perform some amazing tricks with the puck, when given enough time and space.

Most players went along with the argument. Jeremy Roenick was spectacular, suggesting he was all for it and – like me – would have loved to see what the game looked like if the priority was players showing what they could do, and not worrying so much about being properly positioned to execute the trap. It was pretty much the same for everyone asked the question – except Sundin, who happened to be passing through Calgary on a western road trip and thus was fair game. I thought I saw a flicker of interest in Sundin’s eyes when I pushed the concept, but then it quickly disappeared amid the standard there’s-nothing-wrong-with-the-game reply.

From limited dealings with Sundin, and lots of watching from afar, that was my lasting impression. On the ice, I always thought of him as a Ron Francis-type, minus the Stanley Cups - a relentlessly reliable point-per-game player, durable and with that uncanny ability to score with the game on the line, hence all those overtime goals. Was anybody surprised that in his Toronto swan song, he scored the shootout winner for Vancouver against the Leafs? Storybook, that - and you wish, for his sake, that he'd ended up in the winner's circle in the NHL, to supplement Olympic and world championship gold.

Off the ice, all the long-time SportsCentre watchers will remember Sundin was a player that stuck closely to the party line – whatever the issue. You always had the sense that he had more to say, but he wouldn’t permit himself to venture onto controversial ground. Maybe all those years as Leafs’ captain turns you into that – and makes your first instinct to defuse any potential controversies by being as bland as humanly possible.

Too bad. I’d like to have heard more from Sundin over the years because there seemed to be a lot of depth there. He was uniquely positioned in the Centre Of The Hockey Universe to push for the changes that Brendan Shanahan and others eventually put into place. But because Sundin was just so careful and guarded his privacy so closely, you only ever got glimpses of him - what he liked, what he didn't, what made him tick. Considering where he played and what a long and prosperous career he had, that was quite a unique trick.