Big Buff all smiles during World Cup of Hockey

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This article was published 11/09/2016 (3633 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — It’s always been a distinctly Dustin Byfuglien trait — he is at his most menacing when he has a smile on his face.

Think about it — how many times have you seen Byfuglien over the years doing that Incredible Hulk thing he does where he grabs one opponent with one hand and another with the other hand and tosses the both of them around like a couple of dolls?

Does that jog your memory? Now look closer — see what’s on Byfuglien’s face in that moment?

 

 

Exactly, a rack of big pearly whites and a grin.

He’s smiling because he loves that stuff. Indeed, you cannot help but get the feeling watching Byfuglien that he chooses to play professional hockey simply because it is the only activity he’s ever found more fun than fishing.

He is at his very best and most dominating when he is having fun.

And that, Winnipeg Jets fans, is very good news. Because when I caught up with Byfuglien over the weekend, the Jets defenceman told me he is having more fun right now than he ever has.

“Yeah, everything has just happened for me this year — boom, boom, boom,” Byfuglien told me Saturday at Canadian Tire Centre in advance of Team USA’s pre-tournament game against Team Canada at the World Cup of Hockey.

If ever there was an expert in boom, boom, boom it would be the 6-5, 260-pound human eclipse that is Byfuglien.
 

A great year for ‘Buff

The booms Byfuglien references came in rapid succession in 2016 in what has been a career year for the 11-year NHL veteran.

First, there was a monster five-year, US$38 million contract extension back in February. Then there was the announcement that he had been named to Team USA for this tournament, in what is — inexplicably — the first time ever that he will play for his country.

(Show me a national team that cannot find room for a guy like Byfuglien on the roster and I will show you a national team that loses a lot of big games to Canada).

And then finally, there was the announcement earlier this month Byfuglien will be an alternate captain for the Jets this coming season.

It’s the first time Byfuglien will wear the ‘A’ for the Jets on a full-time basis — he also wore it in Year 1 of Jets 2.0, but only for home games — and it is a recognition of just how far Byfuglien has come, on the ice and off.

The unbridled chaos of his game in his first few seasons with the Jets — characterized by far too many costly defensive lapses — has been replaced under head coach Paul Maurice with a more purposeful game.

He’s still chaotic — and still plays many nights as much like a forward as a defenceman.

But it’s a controlled chaos now — with carefully calculated risks ­— and that’s turned what was a weakness in Byfuglien’s game under previous Jets head coach Claude Noel into a strength under Maurice.

“He came in and put a system in play,” Byfuglien says of Maurice. “And he told us, ‘We’re gonna play this way. And if you’re not gonna play the system that way, then you’re not gonna play.’

“And it’s just one of those things. If you’ve got a good system, you’ve got a chance to succeed, as a player and as a team, too. It just fit together.”

That, Byfuglien says, has made hockey a whole lot more like bass fishing for him under Maurice.

“Yeah. Obviously when you’re winning and have a little better program, it changes everything. Everyone comes to the rink with a smile on their face. So it just makes the job better to come to work every day.”

Left unsaid in all of Byfuglien’s praise of Maurice and his system is the implication whatever Noel was doing previously wasn’t working — at least not for Byfuglien.
 

Maturing on and off the ice

But also left unsaid is this: Byfuglien has not only matured as a player in his five years in Winnipeg, he has also matured as a man.

A 2011 arrest on suspicion of boating while intoxicated — Byfuglien ultimately pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of careless boating — created an unwelcome distraction heading into the Jets’ inaugural season.

And then there were the concerns about his weight and off-season workout regimen, which reached an apex in the summer of 2012 when a photo of a shockingly bloated Byfuglien at court surfaced.

There are no concerns about his physical condition anymore. Byfuglien looked to be in playoff shape when I saw him here over the weekend — and he is playing like it too.

He’s played more than 21 minutes a game in each of the Americans’ two games over the weekend against Canada, logging power-play and penalty-kill shifts in a pairing with Jack Johnson of the Columbus Blue Jackets.

That’s a big role for the Jets’ big man. And it’s also a monument to just how valuable Byfuglien is that he’s playing that kind of ice time on a team that also includes such other elite defencemen as John Carlson, Ryan Suter and Ryan McDonagh.

Byfuglien hasn’t registered a point yet, but his game looks to be further ahead than you might expect from such a big man in early September. He stepped into a slapshot here Saturday night that by some miracle missed both the net and killing someone instantly.

And he’s been all kinds of physical, between the whistles and afterward, most notably peeling Canada defenceman Shea Weber out of a melee in Game 1 like Weber was a misbehaving toddler.

It’s interesting though: I asked Byfuglien if he thought he’d matured — as a man and as a player — and, true to form, he wouldn’t give much ground on either front.

“Honestly, I haven’t changed that much (as a player). It was just a matter of the team coming together and playing the system. And that makes everyone look good… I’d like to say I’ve matured (as a man). But I don’t know. As you get older, everyone matures a bit.”

It is probably a default setting for a man so accustomed to people and objects yielding to him that he has a hard time accepting perhaps he’s also given way in some important areas.

Get him talking about putting on a USA jersey for the first time over the weekend and Byfuglien is a bit more revealing about the work he’s put in to become the kind of player — and the kind of man — who gets chosen to wear his country’s flag.

“Obviously it’s an honour and something that you work for, but I never got the opportunity before,” said Byfuglien.

“And now it finally came true.”

America’s new fan favourite?

And now that it has, you cannot help but get the feeling that by the end of this tournament, a player who has long been a Jets’ fan favourite could become a fan favourite of the entire country directly to the south of us.

The Americans look to be a clear second favourite to Canada in this tournament — the two countries split a pair of games over the weekend. And if the two teams go the distance, as many expect, and square off in a best-of-three final at the end of the month, it says here that Byfuglien will be front and centre for Team USA.

He is exactly the kind of player American fans will grow to love — a NASCAR crash on skates. And you cannot help but wonder if by month’s end, we as Canadians come to deeply regret the 20 kilometres that separated Byfuglien’s home in Roseau, Minn., from the Canadian border.

He is American instead of Canadian by only the slimmest of geographic margins. But if he does for Team USA what he’s done for the Jets, it could make a huge difference.

Byfuglien is having a ton of fun right now. That’s going to be great for the Jets, starting in a few weeks.

But right now, it’s just bad news for Canada.

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek