Tyson Barrie wants to help boost the Calgary Flames to a playoff berth that nobody was anticipating.
He wants to someday be able to hang a silver stick on his wall.
And he wants to put a smile on the face of one of his biggest fans, his little boy Leo.
These are all driving forces for the 33-year-old defenceman, who finally found his way back into the Flames’ lineup after an extended string of sit-outs and now is determined to stay there.
“My son is almost four, and he’s starting to understand it and he’s starting to like hockey a little bit,” Barrie told Postmedia. “He will ask me if I scored a goal, and I don’t have the heart to break it to him that I didn’t even play.
“I’d like to have him come to more games and get to watch me play a little bit. That’s a new motivation for me, too.”
While Leo’s dad didn’t light the lamp in Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the Washington Capitals, just seeing his name on the lineup board was a nice change.
It marked Barrie’s first outing with the Flames since Nov. 12. He’d been healthy-scratched for 29 in a row before a two-game conditioning stint this past weekend with the AHL’s Wranglers.
Thanks to a strong performance against the Capitals that included a primary assist, a shot off the cross-bar and three minutes of power-play time, it seems like a safe bet that he’ll be back in action Thursday against the Anaheim Ducks.
“These guys have been great about making me feel a part of it,” Barrie said. “But there’s something about being on the ice and going to war with the guys, and then you get to talk about the game and tell the stories and have a beer after. That kind of makes it all worth it.”
Barrie has a reputation as one of those guys you’d love to have a beer with — post-game or otherwise.
He’s long been known as one of the NHL’s most popular teammates and that has certainly been true around the Saddledome, right from the moment he arrived for training camp on a no-promises PTO.
While Barrie didn’t necessarily expect to be an every-nighter when he inked a one-year contract in Calgary, you wouldn’t fault him if he’d turned a bit bristly as he was being benched night after night after night. Prior to Tuesday, his No. 8 jersey may have needed an extra spin through the washing machine just to chase the dust and rust away.
“It’s really easy for a player, when you have sat out a stretch like he did, to come in and show your teammates, show the staff that is around, bad body language or even to voice your displeasure with the situation, but there has been zero of that,” said Flames head coach Ryan Huska, plenty familiar with Barrie’s upbeat demeanour dating back to their days together with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets. “Even in conversations with teammates, you have your individual meetings with guys and a lot of them would talk about him, how they really enjoy being around him, the quality of person that he is. And all of them know the type of player that he is and what he’s done in the past.
“I think he has been the ultimate pro with how he’s handled this whole thing. He’s kept himself ready. I always go back to Michael Stone, because I spent the most time with him — they are the ultimate pros, guys who can do that. And that allows them to play in the NHL for long periods of time.”
Barrie certainly intends to stick around a while longer.
Through a 14-year career that has also included stints with the Colorado Avalanche, Toronto Maple Leafs, Edmonton Oilers and Nashville Predators, he’s so far totalled 819 regular-season appearances. Only 10 of those have come in the Flaming C.
“I’ve wanted to get to 1,000 games, and there’s not many guys do it,” said Barrie, who watched teammate Mikael Backlund hit the silver-stick milestone in the early stages of this campaign. “It’s not easy to get there. You kind of have to grind and fight and go through some stuff to get to that point. That’s still a goal of mine. Some days, it feels more bleak than others. But you just try to remind yourself that it’s the best league in the world and if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.
“So sometimes, you gotta fight.”
The Flames are right now in a fight of their own, part of a playoff pursuit that few figured they would factor in.
Barrie believes he can help.
Creating offence from the back-end is, as he puts it, his “bread and butter.” He has 500-and-some career points as proof of that, although he knows steady defence will be the key to keeping himself in the lineup, where he is currently paired with fellow righty Brayden Pachal.
“The push for the playoffs, I’ve been a part of it a lot of times in my career and it’s a lot of fun,” Barrie said. “I’ve snuck in on Game 82 against the St. Louis Blues a bunch of years ago, and there’s nothing like fighting to get into the playoffs. So to be able to hopefully come in and play a bit of a role in that, it would be awesome and kind of make all the patience and all the work worth it.”
Along the way, he’d love to be able to tell Leo about a few big goals.
Maybe his son could even be there to witness one or two of ’em.
“When I scored with the Wranglers, he was pumped about that,” Barrie beamed.