It always strikes a positive chord with the Toronto Maple Leafs fan base when the team acquires a guy who hails from Toronto and grew up a Leafs fan. We saw it with John Tavares, Michael Bunting, and Mark Giordano, to name a few, but so far, there hasn’t been a Toronto-born Leafs player who embodies the die-hard fan playing for his childhood team than Steven Lorentz.

After originally signing a professional tryout contract prior to the season, the Kitchener-Waterloo native turned it into a one-year contract and has become a staple in the team’s bottom-six. He’s one point away from his career high, with eight goals and 18 points in 79 games, but he wasn’t brought in to score goals. He knows his role and knows what he has to do to stay in the lineup, and he’s become a favourite for both the fans and head coach Craig Berube.

Lorentz opened the scoring for the Leafs in a milestone win over the Buffalo Sabres, which ended up being the game-winning goal and clinched the team’s first Atlantic Division title in the Auston Matthews era. This effectively locked in a first-round matchup with the Ottawa Senators and the return of the Battle of Ontario in the playoffs for the first time since 2003-04. For Lorentz, the opportunity to play for the Leafs in such a historic rivalry is nothing short of a dream.

“I just remember being a little kid having a mini stick net right in front of the TV, and when there was a TV timeout, I’d just start firing the ball into the net,” a beaming Lorentz reminisced. “Now, being able to do this, I still feel like that 8-year-old kid watching on TV, but I get to sit on the bench with the big boys and go put in my effort out there.”

Born in 1996, Lorentz would have ranged between the ages of 4 and 8 when the Battle of Ontario was at its peak. It may have been north of 20 years ago, but he still remembers watching some of the most iconic moments from the series.

“I remember the two back-to-back goals,” Lorentz said when asked about his memories from the Battle of Ontario, referencing Game 7 of the 2003-04 series. “The one five-hole on Patty Lalime, I don’t know if it was Joe Nieuwendyk, if I remember correctly.”

It was, in fact, Joe Nieuwendyk scoring two identical goals on Senators goaltender Patrick Lalime.

Lorentz was paired on a new-look line with deadline acquisition Scott Laughton and internal deadline acquisition Calle Jarnkrok, and the line seemed to display some solid chemistry in a small sample size. He was quick to shout out his teammates for their roles in the game’s opening goal.

“It was just a good fourth line, Jarny [Jarnkrok] got it in, played it behind the net to myself, cycled it down to Laughty [Laughton], and he made a great backhand pass, Jarny was at the net. That’s textbook hockey, that’s how we want to play, and we just gotta keep that chemistry going.”

The Leafs have one game remaining against the Detroit Red Wings before the playoffs get underway this weekend, and Lorentz will have a grand opportunity to put his name into the history books for his childhood dream, something every fan spent hours dreaming of as a child.