It was a good ceremony with a highlight package to a violin version of U2's with or without you and the crowd gave him a warm greeting but because of the time crunch everything went very quickly and CBC cut away as soon as Mats was done speaking so the standing O was not very long. Mats misses playing hockey and the Toronto fans and has setup a connection between the U OF T and a hospital back home in Sweden and instead of Brian Giota taking the faceoff for the ceremony faceoff it was Tomas Kaberle against Dion Phaneuf.
So also shows the lack of success of one of the most recognizable Hockey teams in the world as he was traded for Sylvain Lefebvre and Wendel Clark and it happened after the Leafs had gone to back-to-back conference finals and were hoping that Mats could help the Leafs get over the hump after he had two straight 100 point seasons. It did not work as it three seasons and a lot of changes and they got back to the conference finals and lost to the Buffalo Sabres without a secondary scorer as Douggy had moved on and then three seasons later they fell flat in the Conference final with the Carolina Hurricanes in game 6 in a 2-1 overtime loss and have not been even close since then.
Mats had 987 points (459 goals and 518 assists) in 981 games in 13 seasons with the Leafs and was the leading scorer for the Leafs for 8 straight seasons until Alexander Mogilny had more points in 2002-03 season
Tom Mehegan
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