The thought crept into Troy Stecher's mind after he was waived by the Edmonton Oilers last month.
"It's my 10th year, seventh team," he said in a conversation with The Athletic this week. "Honestly, there was a little worry about my career, and just that coming to an end. So, what do you have to lose? You might as well just jump in and give it everything you have."
What's behind the 31-year-old's assertive and mighty impressive start with the Toronto Maple Leafs, which included a goal, an assist and a whopping 24.5 minutes worth of action in a win over the defending Stanley Cup champions on Tuesday night?
That was it.
Stecher decided that if he was going to fail, and maybe see his NHL dreams come to an end, it was going to be on his own terms. "When I got here, I just said, 'Screw it. You want to be in the NHL, you gotta prove you belong in the NHL.' I feel like my play has shown that I am an NHL player."
It has. Stecher has been a revelation for the Leafs, an out-of-nowhere waiver-claim surprise who has sparked a team that needed it.
"He should be confident," Jake McCabe, his partner on the Leafs' back end, said, "because he's playing great."
Stecher kind of figured his time with the Oilers was perhaps coming to an end this fall. He was deep on their depth chart. He wasn't playing much, just six games in all, and mostly spare minutes when he did get in there.
"I knew there was going to be a moment where they might move me, try to waive me -- I didn't know if I'd get claimed or go to Bakersfield or whatnot," Stecher said of the Oilers' AHL affiliate in California. "That part was tough mentally."
The uncertainty, that is. Where would his career go next? Would it even be in the NHL?
Waivers finally arrived. What followed was a call from general manager Brad Treliving. The Leafs had claimed him. Another conversation, this one with Oilers GM Stan Bowman, left him oddly hopeful.
"It wasn't due to a lack of performance. It just became a numbers game," Stecher said of the message he received upon his departure from Edmonton. "It just sucked not to play. Every day you work hard, you obviously wish your teammates all the success in the world. But at some point, you know you're not gonna get in if they keep winning. That's fine, because it's enjoyable coming to the rink. But it almost seems like there's no light at the end of the tunnel. You do want to see a little bit of a chance."
He keeps working his butt off. "I always knew I had to stay ready," Stecher said.
Word from a close friend helped. That friend? Chris Tanev, a teammate of Stecher's during his earliest NHL days with the Vancouver Canucks and later, a groomsman at his wedding this past July.
They caught up, talked about family and whatnot.
Joining the Leafs became that much easier with his old pal in the mix -- though, oddly enough, it was an injury to Tanev that partly opened up an opportunity on the right side for Stecher.
There were more connections from Stecher's journey around the NHL: He played with Matias Maccelli with the Arizona Coyotes; he skated with Auston Matthews this past summer in Arizona, where he has a home; he also got on the ice, oddly enough, with McCabe in Wisconsin, where his wife is from and where McCabe spends time in the summer.
It's all helped him feel comfortable with the Leafs.
"They've allowed me to just come in and be myself," Stecher said. "I don't feel like I'm walking on eggshells. I can be somewhat vocal with the guys. I can joke around. I'm picking up on inside jokes."
"You go in, you meet the coaches, you meet the players, you meet the coaches again to go over systems, you go to practice, you try to pick up on tendencies for players. So it's such a whirlwind that you don't really have time to sulk," Stecher said.
It might have been overwhelming had he not been through it many times before. Stecher's career has seen him hop from Vancouver to Detroit to Los Angeles to Arizona to Calgary, back to Arizona, then to Edmonton and now, finally, to Toronto.
"I got traded three years in a row," Stecher said, "and then I played last year in Edmonton and got (placed on) waivers this year, so it's like my fourth time changing organizations. I don't want to say I'm used to it, but I definitely knew what to, somewhat, expect."
He knew how to pack a suitcase more appropriately for what could be a lengthy stay in a hotel, for example. He knew that he would need to grab an Uber to the airport to catch a flight to join his new team.
Little things that removed the teeniest bits of unease from an uneasy time. He knew not to worry. He knew he'd see his wife and dog soon.
"I don't think it's as challenging as people think," Stecher said of changing teams so frequently. "The hockey world is so small to begin with (that) you're gonna know a couple guys on every team regardless. And even if you don't, odds are you're gonna know a guy that's good buddies with somebody on that team. So instantly you have a connection right there."
One chirp, "and the next thing you know, you're buddies."
Stecher feels more sympathy for his wife, who's back in Edmonton packing up. He picked up his phone after Monday's practice in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and found six different photos there waiting from her.
He's injected moxie and spunk onto a Leafs blue line ailing with injuries. Coach Craig Berube raved about the pace that Stecher had injected after the win in Florida, his ability to transport pucks and get the team up and onto offence quick.
He'll confidently make a play, too.
Stecher won't deny that he plays with a chip on his shoulder as an undersized defenceman who had to grind his way through the NHL. "Big time," he said.
Bravado bordering on cockiness is basically mandatory for him. So is playing with maximum energy and effort all the time.
"If I don't play hard, I'm not in this league. I know that," he said. "I'm 5-9 and 190 pounds; there's a lot of bigger guys. So I have to find a way to stay competitive, and that's just playing really hard."
The Stecher of today is "completely different" from the one who first entered the NHL out of the University of North Dakota.
That Stecher was a power-play guy, even running the Canucks' top unit with the Sedin brothers. "And now, I haven't seen the power play in probably six, seven years," Stecher said.
He's had to evolve to survive, in other words. His new role with the Leafs has included first-unit duty on the penalty kill amid the injuries to Tanev and Brandon Carlo. He's also checking top lines next to McCabe, "doing whatever's asked of him," as McCabe put it.
Stecher even blocked four shots against the Florida Panthers.
He wishes he'd known then what he knows now: that it was best for a player like him to carve out any niche that would provide value to the team. Figure out how to be a necessary part of the puzzle.
"Not be so one-dimensional and fixated on, this is what I do good, and it's the only thing I do good," Stecher said. "Everybody can do it. It's just who's gonna be willing to bite the bullet and be like, all right, I'm not good enough for that role, or I'm not as good as that guy, so I've got to find a different role."
"There's so many different ways you can find value in being a player," he said.
Stecher knows better than most how fleeting every opportunity can be. He's trying to take advantage of this one and trying to do it by being himself. Screw it, right? Play bold.
"At the end of the day, as a player, if you're gonna fail, you want to fail. You don't want to be kicked out," Stecher said. "And if you want to succeed, you want to have that opportunity to succeed. And if you don't (succeed), then as a man you can handle that, you've had that opportunity, and it's on you and nobody else.