from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

On the day of the deal, the Maple Leaf who never was waited for a telephone call that never came.

“It would have been nice for somebody to call,” Raffi Torres said on the telephone from San Jose, half-kidding, half-not. “I would have thought that might have happened.

“I know it was just a paper transaction. My GM, Doug Wilson, called to tell me what was going on. I never heard from the Leafs. Never heard a thing.”

His phone was ringing non-stop that day in late February, buzzing with text messages from family and old friends, from people he grew up around, most of them learning of his trade to Toronto — just not of the unusual circumstances.

“I was excited for about five seconds,” said the Markham native. “When I was growing up, I didn’t know anything but Leafs. They were my team. I was crazy about them. Wendel Clark. Doug Gilmour. Mike Gartner. Those were my guys. Then I realized what this was all about.

“It is what it is. I understand the business.”

It’s one thing to understand the business. It’s another to be a central part of a trade that doesn’t send you anywhere but limbo. Torres became the contract that wasn’t necessarily named later in the deal that sent two second-round draft picks to the Leafs in exchange for Roman Polak and Nick Spaling. The Leafs didn’t want the controversial 34-year-old. They are basically eating his expiring salary to make the arrangement work. They didn’t even want to place him with their budding AHL team.

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