”As far as my bread and butter for my skill sets and things like that, I think that was obviously such a great fit playing in Toronto.  And it was kind of through a couple of different evolutions of the team too. Obviously  my first few years, me and Bozy were kind of attached to the hip for all six of those years, which was great. I think our styles complimented each other so great. Just how we thought the game, the different sort of things that we both were good at just meshed together so well. And then having someone like Phil Kessel on the right wing for the first three years of that was amazing. He doesn’t forget to tell me that ‘Don’t forget who made you a player in this league, James’ when he feels like he needs to tell me that. But he was great.

Then the last few years of that, it was kind of 50/50 between Connor Brown and Mitch Marner at five on five and then playing a lot with Mitch Marner on the power play. But I think just stylistically between having those guys on my line, the hockey felt almost easy in a way where you just kind of were in that state of just playing where you didn’t feel like you had to think too much or overthink it. I was really able to play to my instincts there. Just the way we all kind of thought the game and played together and had that kind of chemistry that made it a lot easier. So definitely looking back, Toronto was definitely where that all kind of came together nicely for me.”

 ”We came into that year with kind of something to prove as a team. That was my first year there, but the team didn’t have a great year the year before. Obviously we wanted to make the playoffs. We accomplished those goals. We were down three one in that series, force it to seven. Feel like we have it and then obviously it just slipped away from us. But yeah, that one still hurts to think about. That one was really tough and I don’t think we’ll ever get over that one.”

 ”Sometimes it takes some time to go through some different things and experiences. And it’s hard, especially with the way the format of the playoffs is now. You have tough matchups. For the last five, six years in [the Atlantic Division], you had three of the top six or seven teams in the league every year. So usually in the first round, one of those top teams is going to have to get knocked out and that’s just the way it’s gone. Certainly it’s tough, but those are not guys that I would bet against. I think they’re special players and they have that special quality about them. Obviously it hasn’t gotten their way yet as far as ultimate goal. Tough to predict when that will be, but those are guys that you’d want to have in your corner and want to have on your team any day of the week.”