The whole conversation started with the trade deadline.
Max Domi had been dealt twice at the deadline — first to Carolina in 2022, then to Dallas a year later. I wondered what each of those experiences was like, and what advice he might pass on to others switching teams, including, eventually, three new teammates — Ilya Lyubuskin, Joel Edmundson, and Connor Dewar — with the Leafs.
Advertisement
What began as a conversation about all that morphed into something else entirely. A conversation not only with Domi but his seatmate and close pal in the Maple Leafs dressing room, Ryan Reaves. A conversation not just about being traded, but about the joys and challenges of pursuing hockey’s biggest prize.
But first, the deadline.
For Domi, it was easy. “Neither of them were really crazy man, to be honest, because I kinda knew they were coming,” Domi said of the two March trades, one year apart. “It was like a mutual thing.”
In both instances, he was given the choice: Did he want to go elsewhere and pursue a Cup, or, stay put and ride out the regular season? “And when you have a chance to go somewhere to win, it’s tough to say no,” Domi said.
Domi remains grateful to former Columbus Blue Jackets GM Jarmo Kekäläinen for granting him that opportunity, with a trade to the Hurricanes in March 2022. What still pains him though is how it all ended for Carolina.
“Two seven-game series there,” he said of the Hurricanes’ run, which ended in the second round against the New York Rangers. “We ran into a hot goalie and Reavo,” Domi added, looking over to Reaves, seated to his left. “Shesterkin basically singlehandedly won them that series.”
Igor Shesterkin put up a .949 save percentage during that series.
“Listen man,” Domi went on, “when you go from Columbus, a team where you’re kinda in one and you know you’re not gonna make the playoffs, to all of a sudden you have a chance to win the Stanley Cup, it’s exciting. I’m always grateful for that. I’ll always look back and think Jarmo is a great guy for giving me the opportunity to do that. He didn’t have to do that. He could’ve kept me and let my contract run out.”
It was the same story in Chicago in early March last year.
“There was obviously talks of me staying there,” Domi, who was playing on a one-year contract, said. “Dallas was interested and when I found out that they were as interested as they were, it’s tough to pass up that opportunity. But I do love Chicago. It was one of those things where the boys are like, ‘OK, see you in the summer maybe?’ But no, I loved my time in Chicago.”
Advertisement
He got to play for Luke Richardson, a close friend and former teammate of his father, Tie. He got to play on the same line as Patrick Kane, “my favourite player growing up.”
But in Dallas, he got to chase the Cup. The Stars went all the way to the Western Conference final, losing in six games to the eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights.
Players traded mid-season, Domi explained, will typically live in a hotel for a week or two before finding a more (semi) permanent home, with help from the team.
“Teams are pretty good about that,” he said.
Some players, Domi conceded, find it difficult to fit in with their new squad, with a huge set of largely unfamiliar teammates, coaches, and staff. “I think it depends on your personality,” he said.
For Domi, friendly and outgoing, the transition was easy.
“That’s kinda my thing, I guess,” he says. “I say the same thing every time, I’ve been on seven teams and I could say unbelievable things about every single locker room, how I feel this is the best group of guys.”
On this particular day early in March, Domi and Reaves are leading one side of a heated debate inside the dressing room: Do Formula 1 drivers qualify as professional athletes?
Domi and Reaves both say no. “You are the only two that don’t think so!” Mitch Marner shouts from across the room.
“No, no, no, we got more now!” Reaves responds.
The Leafs are Reaves’ sixth NHL team and seventh for Domi.
“I think now I know the whole league because I’ve been on so many teams,” Domi said. “Or if you don’t know a guy, you know someone that knows that guy.”
“It makes it tricky sometimes when you’re playing games against guys, because you have buddies everywhere. I mean, the NHL is a buddy-buddy league.”
Hearing this, Reaves chimes in.
“I turned into a suitcase,” he says, “and I’ve got f—ing boys everywhere.”
Advertisement
“But it’s not a bad thing,” Domi responds.
Domi and Reaves both agree that the two of them could crisscross somehow with every player in the entire league.
“For sure,” Domi said. “But it’s fun. I think you gain a lot of experience from going to new places, right? Because you see what works and what doesn’t.
“Listen man,” he goes on, “you can play with someone like Reavo, who’s been in the league for almost a thousand games, someone like John (Tavares), who’s got over a thousand points, and then all of a sudden, you’re with Joe Pavelski and then Matthew Knies! You get the whole spectrum and you learn something new from everyone. And I think that’s super valuable.”
Domi says he never learned more than during last year’s playoff experience with Dallas. Just how much it really took to get even close to the Cup. Domi thought back to 2022, to the Hurricanes’ second-round series against Reaves’ Rangers. He remembered it as “an absolute war.”
“He would even say the same thing,” Domi said, motioning to Reaves.
“It was a war,” Reaves agreed.
“And how much every game takes out of you, it’s a war,” Domi went on about playoff hockey. “And you’re running on fumes. And it’s just a matter of will at that point. And you’ve got to have a hot goalie and you gotta have everyone on board. You can’t have any passengers. It takes, absolutely, four lines and more. And then you need six D and more, and two goalies.”
Of the Leafs, he added, “I’m a strong believer that in this locker room we have that, and outside of this locker room we have depth too that can help us win too.”
Domi and Reaves both agreed that surviving the playoffs meant doing absolutely nothing on the days between games. Just recover. “It’s emotionally more draining too,” Reaves said of the postseason.
Reaves went as far as the Stanley Cup Final with Vegas in 2018. He’s played in 108 NHL playoff games.
“Everything matters,” he said. “Like, if you lose a game – you always have to have a short memory, but you lose a game and you gotta talk about that game and get right back to it two days later.”
Advertisement
“It’s so fun,” Domi interjects.
“And that next game is so important,” Reaves continues. “And then you win that and it’s like, Alright, we’re back and we gotta stay on the gas. It’s like that during the regular season.”
“Totally different mindset though,” said Domi.
“Completely different,” Reaves agreed.
“Amplified by about a thousand,” Domi said.
At the end of it, “You’re just drained,” Reaves said.
Mentally and physically.
“I think physically you’re done before you even start the playoffs,” Domi said. “If you think about it, 82 games, physically you’re gassed. And then it’s all just mental from there. And then eventually you just hit a wall mentally too.”
“Mentally, you just have to push,” Reaves said. “That’s (what) the best teams (have) — mentally the guys who can push through aches, the pains, push through all the adversity and just keep grinding.”
How does one do that?
“You just gotta remember what you’re doing it for,” Reaves said.
“Our whole lives have been dedicated to trying to win a Stanley Cup, right,” Domi said. “So it’s like as soon as you get into the playoffs you take that next step, and then you win one game and you’re like, Oh my God, 15 more and you’re a Cup champ. You’re searching for that second one and then a third one.
“I felt last year in Dallas, when I really thought we had a chance,” Domi said, meaning to win it all, “it’s almost like every (win) just has that, I can’t even believe we’re gonna win. It’s a pretty nice feeling.”
One that he and Reaves hope to have more of with the Leafs.
(Top photo: Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images)
