On Monday, the day he celebrated his 23rd birthday, Calgary Flames rookie Michael Ferland – the toast of one town and the scourge of another – was reflecting on where he was exactly a year ago.
"I was in rehab," Ferland said. "I didn't think I'd be playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs, that's for sure."
Unexpectedly, Ferland has become one of the central figures in the Flames' Pacific Division semi-final series against the Vancouver Canucks, which Calgary leads 2-1.
In Sunday's 4-2 victory over the Canucks, Ferland set the physical tone for what is largely an undersized collection of Calgary forwards, making nine bone-crunching hits, most of the time looking as if he'd been shot out of a cannon. Ferland always had an enticing power forward's skill set – good hands, decent speed and a willingness to play a physical brand of hockey.
But as recently as two years ago, it looked as if he were frittering away any chance of a professional career because of an alcohol problem. Ferland played for four teams in 2012-13, and the direction was all wrong – he sank from the AHL to the ECHL and then back to junior. Around Christmas last year, after blowing out his knee, Ferland was close to rock bottom, wondering what path to follow.
The decision to get clean and sober, he said Monday, was "the best I ever made. People always told me when I was getting help, 'You'll see your life unfold in front of you, and it'll be the best thing for you.' I never really understood it, but now, my life's kind of unfolding in front of me, and I do. I'm enjoying it. I'm having a lot of fun right now."
Fun, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. The Canucks are having no fun with Ferland's wrecking-ball style of play, though defenceman Kevin Bieksa was having some fun with his name – mispronouncing it "Ferkland" after the brawl in Vancouver last week.
Ferland plays on the Flames' checking line that also includes Matt Stajan and David Jones. They get the occasional shifts against the Canucks' top line of Daniel and Henrik Sedin along with Alex Burrows. Ferland's mother, Dianne, who raised him and two other children as a single parent and is due in town to watch Thursday night's game, gave him some parental advice before Sunday's game – don't run the Sedins, because, according to Ferland, "she loves those guys."
Ferland, who says he owes everything in his life to his mother's sacrifices growing up, nevertheless decided not to follow her counsel in this case. Everyone in a Canucks sweater is fair game – the operative word being fair.
In a series where two of the three games ended in donnybrooks, the NHL advised both clubs to tone down the extraneous action. Burrows will not be suspended for earning an instigator penalty in the final five minutes of Sunday's game, and Ferland shrugged off his late fight with Bieksa as typical playoff fare, nothing more. "Just battling down low," he said. "Heat of the moment, gloves were off, it was just two competitive guys. It happens."
It's old-school hockey, and Ferland is nothing if not an old-school type of player. He looked up to Jordin Tootoo, who came through the ranks in Brandon, Man., where Ferland played most of his junior hockey, and has read Tootoo's book about his struggles with addiction.
In his 96-point year with the Wheat Kings, Ferland played on the same line as Mark Stone, the Ottawa Senators' rookie sensation, and the hope is that he can forge an equally successful NHL career.
Flames general manager Brad Treliving revealed Monday that, when he was still working for the Arizona Coyotes, he tried to talk Calgary into trading Ferland. But his predecessor, Jay Feaster, turned him down.
"A lot of people who watched him play in junior knew he was a real unique package," Treliving said. "There was a lot of work to be done, and he's the one who put the work in. Where he was a year ago to today is a real testament to him. If you know where this guy comes from, it's not been an easy road. You root for those kinds of guys."
Moreover, Treliving believes Ferland is just scratching the surface of his potential.
"He's a young 23, in the sense that he's just starting to figure things out," Treliving said. "Now, he's starting to realize what you can do if you look after yourself and take care of yourself and you're training. He's still a young player and it's not going to be a flat line, but to me, we're at the ground floor of what this guy is capable of doing."
The challenge of one-day-at-a-time sobriety is its relentlessness. There'll be temptations put in his way, especially now, as he becomes something of a cult hero in Calgary.
"I just want to stay focused on one game at a time," Ferland said, and in his case, it isn't a cliché but a fact of his daily life – from now until the end, wherever his path may take him.