Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson reflect on Jason Spezza’s time with Senators

Long before they connected to become two-thirds of the most prolific scoring line in Ottawa Senators franchise history, Dany Heatley vividly recalls learning about Jason Spezza.

“I remember being in junior high school, walking home one day and reading The Hockey News with his face on the cover. He was a prodigy right from the start,” Heatley told The Athletic on Sunday. “And then you see what he did in these last few years with Toronto at his age. It was awesome to watch. I’m just proud of him for that. What a great career from start to finish. I’m just thankful I got to play with him and be his teammate and his friend.”

The 38-year-old Spezza announced his retirement on Sunday and will be joining the Maple Leafs front office to work under GM Kyle Dubas next season. Spezza’s popularity with his ex-teammates is evident — even forcing the longest-serving captain in Ottawa history to have a soft spot for the Maple Leafs this spring.

“I was kind of rooting for Toronto because of him,” Daniel Alfredsson admitted to The Athletic Sunday evening. “I thought that maybe he had one more year left in him, but I’m happy for him. I’m glad he could go out the way he did. It’s not somebody else telling him he can’t go on. So I feel very happy that he can go out with his head held high. Just a phenomenal career.”

And while he’s certainly connected to Toronto’s franchise these days, it’s undeniable that Spezza’s most glorious years were spent in Ottawa. He amassed 687 points in 686 games with Ottawa, making him the only point-per-game player who suited up in more than 500 games for the Senators franchise.

But it wasn’t always an easy road for Spezza in Ottawa. His path to success was littered with obstacles right from the start.

Drafted at No. 2 in the 2001 NHL Draft, Spezza had the rare pressure of being a top draft pick who was immediately parachuted onto the roster of a Stanley Cup contender. While other high draft picks like Heatley, Ilya Kovalchuk and Rick Nash were afforded the ability to make youthful mistakes with bottom-dwelling franchises, Spezza was expected to have a refined and polished 200-foot game to help a championship-calibre Ottawa team.

“I think the way we played the game at the time was a very defensive-style game,” Alfredsson recalled. “And I don’t know if Spezza had played a ton of defence before joining us. He was so good offensively that he could get away with a lot of stuff. But when Jacques Martin was there, his approach was, ‘You have to buy in before you get more ice time.’ And there was a little bit of head-butting there.”

When he was the final cut from the roster at the end of training camp in the fall of 2001, Martin infamously quipped, “This is a man’s league, and he’s still a boy.”

The following season, the pattern repeated itself with Spezza one of the final training camp casualties in October of 2002. Spezza appeared in six of the Senators’ seven pre-season games that fall, a sure sign that management wasn’t quite sold on his NHL readiness just yet.

“I’m not stupid, I can tell how things are going,” Spezza said after his second demotion in 2002. “I want to be a player in this league — not just a player, but a good player — and I think I can and I think I’ll be up here maybe sooner than they think.”

At the conclusion of the 2002-03 regular season, Kovalchuk had already tallied 67 goals with two years in the NHL under his belt, while Spezza — who saw time in the OHL and AHL and spot duty with the Senators — had only managed seven goals in 33 NHL games.

But the teenager soon gave his first glimpse of greatness at the NHL level in the 2003 playoffs.

With the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Senators facing elimination down 3-1 in their series against New Jersey, Martin inserted Spezza into the lineup in a desperate attempt for an offensive spark. The 19-year-old delivered, assisting on Martin Havlat’s game-winning goal in the third period and then adding an insurance marker of his own to keep the Senators’ hopes alive.

Many assumed Spezza’s playoff heroics would earn him a permanent spot in the Senators lineup moving forward. But the 2003-04 playoffs ended with Spezza being a healthy scratch in four of Ottawa’s games during a seven-game loss against Toronto.

Even though it looked grim, Jason Spezza was on the doorstep to greatness. Alfredsson could see that Spezza was ready to buy into the team concept and take his game to the next level.

“Once he bought in, he never looked back,” says Alfredsson. “It just took a little adjustment for everybody involved.”

Heatley’s first assist on a Spezza goal produced one of the most exhilarating and memorable goals in Senators history. But Heatley doesn’t have a great recollection of his role in Spezza’s overtime goal to beat Montreal on October 27, 2005.

“I must have just given it to him in our zone, because I do remember him carrying it down the ice,” laughed Heatley. “But I don’t remember passing it to him.”

Heatley ended up with a prime seat for Spezza’s spectacular goal, one that is often top-of-mind for Senators fans when discussing the most spectacular goals in regular-season history.

“What I do remember is (Sheldon Souray) trying to step up and hit him big and Spezz just made him look silly,” said Heatley. “And then the patience there to deke Jose (Theodore) again. I mean, that’s how silky his hands are.”

In many ways, this goal provided an emphatic punctuation mark to end the debate about Spezza’s place in the NHL. The goal against Theodore gave Spezza 14 points in his first eight games of the season and it was clear the young centre was ready for prime time.

The 2005-06 season created a perfect recipe for success for Spezza. The league implemented more offensive-friendly rules coming out of the lockout-cancelled season, allowing gifted players like Spezza to shine. Martin was replaced behind the bench by Bryan Murray, who seemed more open to playing a style that might suit Spezza’s offensive creativity. And Spezza was coming into the year fresh off winning an AHL scoring title with 117 points in Binghamton in 2004-05.

“I think those first couple of years I was in Ottawa, we were all kind of trying to prove something. It was just perfect,” explains Heatley. “I was coming in from Atlanta and I had something to prove. Spezza and some of the other guys like (Chris) Kelly, (Ray) Emery and (Brian) McGrattan hadn’t established themselves as full-time NHLers. So I think we were all hungry.”

Spezza immediately forged a connection with Heatley, who registered the only 50-goal campaigns in franchise history in 2005-06 and 2006-07. Out of the 180 goals Heatley scored in Ottawa, Spezza provided an assist on exactly 100 of them — a remarkable testament to their chemistry.

“It feels like that number should be 150,” laughed Heatley when told about the statistic.

“There is something that can’t be explained. He was always looking for me. And he kind of always had an idea where I was,” added Heatley. “And I trusted his ability to know where I was, too. He knew where I liked to hang and he always knew where I was.”

When asked to recall some of his favourite passes from Spezza, Heatley pointed to an obscure goal — he wasn’t even sure of the opponent — in which the chemistry with his centreman was on full display.

“One of my favourite goals, which nobody else will remember, was there was a shot from the point that went up high in the air. And I think me and him were the only ones to see it. It got lost in the crowd. It ended up behind the net. And in one motion, he just took the puck as soon as it landed and gave it to me in the slot. I one-timed it and it was in the back of the net before anybody else in the rink knew what was going on,” says Heatley. “It was a good example of the communication we had, without even knowing it.”

The dynamic duo of Heatley and Spezza was flanked on the right side by Alfredsson, who says this line was “almost a perfect mix.”

“We had a really good combination of a pure goal scorer, a pure playmaker and then I contributed a little bit of everything,” says Alfredsson.

Alfredsson recalls that coaches would often break up the trio to try and spread the offensive wealth, only to return to the formula that usually led to success.

“I remember the season when John Paddock took over. The first thing he said to us was, ‘You’re not going to play together all the time. I’m going to give you five games and then break you up,’” recalls Alfredsson. “Well, we were so good those first five games, he couldn’t break us up. We became such an offensive threat that whoever we played against, we knew they were just trying to defend. They weren’t even trying to score against us, so that gave us even more liberty. I just think the playmaking of Spezza and the scoring of Heatley scared a lot of opponents.”

Senators fans had fun coming up with a name for their new No. 1 offensive line.

They were originally known as the “CASH Line,” because it was an acronym for Captain Alfredsson, Spezza and Heatley — and because they were money in big situations. But the “Pizza Line” moniker soon took hold, thanks largely to the fact that the Senators were forced to change an in-game promotion for free pizza due to the prolific scoring from their newly-formed unit.

“I enjoyed it when Pizza Pizza moved the threshold from five goals to six goals,” says Heatley. “That made us feel pretty good.”

The Pizza Line reached its pinnacle in the spring of 2007, with the three Ottawa linemates finishing at Nos. 1-2-3 in Stanley Cup playoff scoring with 22 points apiece. But the Senators lost to Anaheim in the Stanley Cup Final in five games and things took a downward spiral from there. The club had a brilliant start to the 2007-08 campaign, but a tailspin that started in December plagued the club right through a first-round sweep at the hands of the upstart Pittsburgh Penguins.

In 2008-09, the Senators opted for a defensive mindset under Craig Hartsburg, whose tactical approach seemed to stifle the creative genius of Spezza and his linemates. Spezza ended the campaign with only 73 points and Heatley asked for a trade at the conclusion of the campaign after Cory Clouston assumed the coaching duties. The Pizza Line era was officially over in Ottawa.

At the end of the 2009-10 season, there were whispers that Spezza was the next one asking for a change of scenery. Ottawa fans booed the star centre during Game 4 of their playoff series loss to Pittsburgh in 2010, a hostile reception for a player on home ice. At the exit meetings with Murray, Spezza let it be known to management that he felt like he was taking an unfair amount of criticism from fans and media.

“I got an impression that he was quite unhappy at the end,” Murray told the media in April of 2010. “I think the coverage he felt he got and the fan reaction a couple of times left him kind of wanting a little bit. But I don’t think it’s anything beyond that. My next conversation with him will be away from the emotion of playoff time to see what we can do and what we have to do.”

Spezza would soon convert many of his critics by putting together arguably his most dominant and well-rounded season in 2011-12. Under new head coach Paul MacLean, Spezza thrived by finishing sixth in Hart Trophy voting for league MVP that season. Despite trading in Heatley and Alfredsson for Milan Michalek and Colin Greening, Spezza was able to produce 84 points — ranking fifth in the entire league.

Spezza’s confidence was on full display in Winnipeg that season, as he created another memorable highlight-reel moment that showed off his world-class skill and creativity.

In the playoffs, Spezza saved an elite performance for a pivotal Game 5 at Madison Square Garden. He scored the only two goals of the game in a 2-0 Senators victory, capping the evening with an empty-net goal in the final minute of regulation time. The player who was once thought to be too nonchalant and careless in his own zone was now trusted to be on the ice to protect the lead in the final minute of a playoff game.

“I think he really started believing in himself. I think he was a good player before that, no question,” says Alfredsson. “But confidence is a huge thing. And he was really feeling it that year. When you have the skills of Jason and the confidence, watch out.”

Unfortunately for Ottawa fans, that 2011-12 season was the final highwater mark for Spezza in a Senators jersey.

After a lockout delayed the start of the 2012-13 campaign, Spezza suffered a back injury that required surgery — limiting him to only five regular-season games. He returned for three playoff games that spring against Pittsburgh, but it was clear he wasn’t the player he was before the procedure.

That summer, Alfredsson bolted for Detroit — leaving a massive void in the Senators dressing room. Spezza assumed the captaincy for the 2013-14 season, but his relationship with MacLean seemed to have cooled. The Senators missed the postseason by a healthy margin and Spezza finished the campaign with a career-worst minus-26 rating.

With only one year remaining on his contract, Spezza told Murray that a change of scenery would likely benefit both parties. It was less of a trade demand and more of a request, but Murray granted those wishes by sending Spezza to the Dallas Stars on July 1, 2014.

“It’s something I took very seriously, being the captain — especially on a Canadian team and somewhere I had been for a long time. So I was disappointed with how my one year as captain went, but that’s hockey and you learn from it,” Spezza said after the trade in 2014. “I didn’t just wake up one day and decide I wanted to ask for a trade. It was something I felt was necessary to move on in my career and kind of start another chapter. It definitely wasn’t an easy decision.”

Spezza spent five seasons in Dallas and once again, he seemed to elevate his play during the postseason. In the 2016 playoffs, Spezza collected 13 points in 13 games before a heartbreaking Game 7 loss to St. Louis in the second round. Despite his consistent playoff production — with 76 points in 97 career playoff games — Spezza could never slay that Game 7 dragon that first reared its ugly head against New Jersey in the spring of 2003.

His teams went 0-6 in Game 7s over the course of his career, losing two win-or-go-home games with Ottawa (2003 and 2012), Dallas (2016 and 2019) and Toronto (2021 and 2022).

But Spezza’s pursuit for an elusive championship is not over, as he migrates over to Toronto’s front office. And Alfredsson believes that at some point down the road, Spezza will likely have the opportunity to construct his own roster at the top of a team’s hockey operations department.

“He’s always had a phenomenal hockey mind. And you know, I won’t be surprised if my grandkids are talking about him as a phenomenal general manager. That wouldn’t surprise me one bit,” says Alfredsson. “I think he’s got a lot of years involved in hockey going forward.”

(Top photo of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2008: Andre Ringuette / NHLI via Getty Images)