Fresh off a goal, a fight, and a dominant preseason statement against Ottawa, Zack MacEwen has skated into the Maple Leafs’ opening-night picture while pushing Steven Lorentz to the waiver wire.
Zack MacEwen did not need a reminder that the Maple Leafs were looking for a certain kind of player on the edges of their rebuilt roster. He just needed a night like Wednesday.
In a 6-1 preseason win over the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Arena, the 6-foot-4, 226-pound winger scored, fought, blocked a shot and answered when the game got messy. By Thursday, Steven Lorentz was on waivers and MacEwen was skating on a fourth line with Teddy Blueger and Brandon Duhaime as Toronto trimmed their rostertoward opening night.
“I think it’s a bit of a statement game for me,” MacEwen said on Wednesday. “Obviously, I’m trying to assert myself here. I feel like I did a good job of that tonight.”
The goal was the cleanest part of the statement. Late in the second period, with Toronto already in control, Easton Cowan found him on a two-on-one and MacEwen tipped it home to make it 4-1. The rest of the night was the work the Leafs signed him to do. He finished checks, got pucks in and dropped the gloves with Hayden Hodgson, a former Ottawa teammate who was trying to stir something in a blowout.
“You always want to play well against the team that you played for,” MacEwen said. “It’s kind of a game that you have marked on the calendar. As far as that stuff goes, obviously I know him and he knows me. I think he’s trying to make a statement for himself. I think he went a little bit too far at the end. Doesn’t really have a lot of respect for the game doing that shit. But, you know, it’s part of the game. Tensions run high. It’s preseason. People are trying to make a statement. Everybody’s trying to make the NHL.”
Hodgson asked. MacEwen answered. Later, when Hodgson kept pushing after the score was out of reach, MacEwen was there again. The crowd let him hear it.
“Coming off the year I had last year and getting back into that kind of the game-within-the-game stuff that’s part of my game and having that go the way it went tonight, yeah, it was special,” he said. “And hearing the fans like that, it just fires me up.”
That year was almost nothing. After Ottawa sent him to New Jersey last October for Kurtis MacDermid, MacEwen played three games with the Devils and then tore his ACL in mid-November against Chicago, a fluke, he has said, after his foot caught the dasher. Surgery followed. So did a rehab that ate the rest of the season. He skated again in May and spent the summer in Halifax training alongside Sidney Crosby, Nathan MacKinnon and Brad Marchand.
“I did everything I could to get back early, and now I’m back and feeling great,” MacEwen said of the knee surgery last year..” So it’s just knowing that that work that I put in is coming to fruition is a good feeling, and I’m just going to keep building on it and getting better.”
The Leafs were watching. General manager John Chayka’s overhaul of the bottom six left room for a cheap, physical extra who could play and police. MacEwen signed a two-year, $1.75-million deal on July 1. He said there were other offers. Toronto stood out.
“People were kind of keeping an eye on the rehab,” he said. “I think Toronto looked like the best fit for me. Coming in with obviously the new management, all the new additions coming here, being in Canada, being closer to home. I think that’s what was on my mind.”
The Charlottetown, P.E.I., product has 17 goals and 17 assists in 240 NHL games with Vancouver, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Ottawa and New Jersey. He is not here to pad the scoresheet. Jim Hiller made that clear after Wednesday and again Thursday.
“Well, we like the physicality,” Hiller said. “I know he scored last night, but I think what was equally or probably more important to us was, you know, there was some stuff going on, and he was able to get in there fairly quickly, and do his job.”
After the game, Hiller also pointed to the forecheck, the skating for a big man and the willingness to finish checks. “That’s what we need from him,” the coach said. “If it gets rough or somebody is trying to take liberties, that’s also part of his job.”
MacEwen’s Ottawa chapter also left him with Daniel Alfredsson now on Hiller’s staff.
“I love Alfie. Me and him, I think we have a great relationship,” MacEwen said. “We’re in Ottawa together for a period of time. He’s such a great guy to work with, such an intelligent hockey mind to pick his brain. He’s just awesome.”
MacEwan’s reporter is joining the club on a the Arizona trip and possibly the opening-day lineup against Montreal on Sept. 29. Nick Paul is day-to-day. Dakota Joshua is working back. Max Domi remains out.
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