(Photo by Kevin C. Cox)

Toby Enstrom was never a player to always be in the headlines. He was not a player who would regularly dominate the highlight reel. He was a quiet, under the radar kind of guy. 

For many players, these remarks might seem like a dig on the player. But for Enstrom, these represent some of his greatest strengths as a hockey player. 

Toby Enstrom was always a reliable defenseman, a steady presence on the blue line. He was rarely out of position, and allowed his defensive partners, like the offensively wondrous Dustin Byfuglien, to jump up and into the play. 

And his reliability was limited to just defense. He regularly put up 20+ point seasons, including multiple 50-point campaigns. 

The story of a guy like Enstrom, underrated and undervalued, can be likable enough on its own. But when you look at his origins, that just continues to grow. 

Enstrom was an 8th round pick in the NHL Draft back in 2003, a round that does not even exist in today’s NHL. He was drafted by the Atlanta Thrashers who, among other things, weren’t really known for their stellar drafting history. 

In the four years following his draft, Enstrom stuck with his Swedish Hockey League team MODO Hockey, his point totals doubling from 14 in 2004-05 to 28 in 2006-07. By the time he was set to make the jump to the NHL, Enstrom was ready to make an immediate impact in Atlanta. 

Enstrom made the Thrashers team out of training camp, and opened the 2007-08 season in Atlanta. He was joining a blue line that offered a unique blend of young players and established veterans. 

The 23 year old Enstrom was not only the youngest defenseman to be a regular in the lineup, but the youngest player on the team overall to be a regular. During his rookie season, he appeared in all 82 games, recording 38 points. His point totals ranked sixth on the Thrashers, and best amongst defensemen on the team. 

He had quickly proven himself as a solid NHL player, and quite a valuable one at that. In his sophomore season, Enstrom proved that his rookie year was no fluke. He put up 32 points from the backend, and saw a sharp increase in power play time as well. In addition to that, Enstrom was one of the few Atlanta players able to record a positive +/- at +14, behind only Rich Peverley for the team lead. 

He was a popular teammate as well, showing a fun personality in the locker room, including this gem with his buddy Colby Armstrong. Interestingly, Toby said in that interview that the alternate red Thrashers jersey, much maligned as one of the worst jerseys of all time, was his favorite of Atlanta’s. 

Enstrom’s instant success earned him a shiny new deal when his rookie contract was up in the offseason. The Thrashers signed him to a four year deal that carried a $3.75 million dollar cap hit. 

Enstrom started off the 2009-10 season with 7 points in his first 9 games, and that pace would allow him to tally his first 50 point season of his NHL career. 

He would continue to be a solid defender on an Atlanta team that, for a while, looked like they could possibly make the playoffs that season. However, the team started to falter, and the trade of franchise icon and pending UFA Ilya Kovalchuk helped contribute to another season of no playoffs for Enstrom and the Thrashers. 

That offseason, the Thrashers were able to take advantage of the extremely cap strapped Chicago Blackhawks, fresh off of their Stanley Cup victory. Among several other valuable players, Atlanta was able to bring in Dustin Byfuglien. 

Having been converted to forward to give Chicago a big body in front of the net, Atlanta converted him back to his natural position as a defenseman, and he spent a large part of the season paired with Enstrom. 

The plan was a success, with the more adventurous Byfuglien able to take risks knowing that Enstrom could cover for him if needed. That season, the Thrashers’ last in Atlanta, Enstrom recorded a career high 51 points, including 10 goals, also a career high. 

The pairing was so successful that both Enstrom and Byfuglien were invited to the 2011 All Star Game in Raleigh, North Carolina. Sadly, Toby would be forced to miss the event after suffering an injury while blocking a shot just a week and a half before the game. 

His injury, a broken finger, would keep him out of the lineup for three weeks before he could return in mid-February. The injury also ended his streak of 296 consecutive games played. 

He finished the season with 51 points (his defense partner Byfuglien had 53) which was good for third on the team. Captain Andrew Ladd led with 59 points on a very team-effort style Thrashers squad that crumbled in the second half of the season and once again missed the playoffs. 

In the summer of 2011, the Thrashers were sold and relocated to Winnipeg to bring back the Winnipeg Jets. At the same time, Enstrom was entering the final year of his contract that now-former GM Don Waddell had signed him to. 

In his and the team’s first year in Winnipeg, Enstrom recorded 31 points (his highest as a Jet) on a Winnipeg team that spent the year immersed in the city’s excitement. Despite that, the team would see only a minor improvement, winning 37 games (up from 34) in the 2011-12 season. 

The Jets had created an entire new front office staff after the move, and new general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff saw great value in Enstrom. Winnipeg extended him 5 years at $28.750 million in total, with a cap hit of $5.75 million per season. In addition, Enstrom was given a full no-move clause, guaranteeing his spot on the Jets’ team for the entirety of that contract. 

The first year of his new deal came as the NHL entered the 2012-13 lockout. During that waiting out process, Enstrom spent a brief time in Europe, playing 5 games with EC Salzburg of the ICE Hockey League. 

Once the NHL came back, Enstrom put up 15 points in 22 games, missing significant time with injury in addition to the lockout-shortened schedule. 

The next year, Enstrom would return to playing every game of the season (the last time he would play 82 games in his NHL career), putting up 30 points. Despite him, the Jets were still one year out from a playoff appearance. 

In 2014-15, Winnipeg made the playoffs for the first time since the relocation, and only the second time in franchise history (2006-07 being the first). He played 60 regular season games that year, putting up 23 points from the blueline. 

Sadly for Toby, however, his first Stanley Cup Playoffs experience would be over in a matter of days. The Jets were swept in four games at the hands of the Anaheim Ducks. Toby recorded just 1 assist, and was a -3 in Game 4, the deciding game of the series.

It would take three more years for Enstrom and the Jets to get back to the postseason, and as his point totals dwindled into the teens, the final years of his NHL career were upon him. 

He continued to suffer injury problems, including on a board from Pittsburgh’s Tom Sestito that got Sestito suspended four games. 

In the final year of his contract during the 2017-18 season Enstrom, now 33 years old, battled through injury problems and was limited to just 43 games, tallying 6 points. His performance was trending down, even as the Jets dominated to make the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs, finishing with a record of 52-20-10. 

He averaged just 17:02, a near 5 minute drop from the previous season. 

In the postseason, the Jets won their first ever playoff game in franchise history against the Minnesota Wild in Game 1 en route to a 4-1 series win. They also battled through a gritty yet exciting second round against the Presidents Trophy winning Nashville Predators, winning in 7 games. 

The Jets had shocked the hockey world when they arrived in the Western Conference Finals, but the tides were about to turn. 

Winnipeg got dismantled by the Vegas Golden Knights (still in their inaugural season), and as the series became further and further out of reach, head coach Paul Maurice, coach since 2014, had some tough decisions to make. 

Maurice opted to make Enstrom a healthy scratch in the must-win Game 5, replacing him with Joe Morrow, a former first round pick of the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Enstrom was one of several changes Maurice made that included scratching defenseman Ben Chiarot and forward Andrew Copp for (former Penguin) Dmitry Kulikov and Joel Armia. 

Enstrom had played 11 playoff games for Winnipeg that season, but recorded 0 points. It was reported that he was playing in the postseason through broken ribs, a rumor that Maurice would later refute. 

As a result, he watched from the press box, not the ice, as the Jets lost at home in Game 5, sending Vegas to the Stanley Cup Finals. 

Enstrom was reportedly very hurt by the Jets’ decision to scratch him in the most critical game of their season. Following the Jets’ elimination, Enstrom was nowhere to be found as players talked to reporters during their lockout cleanout day two days later. 

Reporters were told he was “long gone.”

Enstrom played all 719 games of his NHL career with the Thrashers/Jets organization. He recorded 308 points over that time. His ending is a sad one, leaving unhappy from the team that he stayed loyal to and even waived his NMC for in the Expansion Draft. 

But even if his NHL days were to continue, they were not going to be in Winnipeg. His likely asking price, combined with the prospects coming up the Jets’ pipeline and the Jets’ cap crunch made it nearly impossible for Enstrom to return. 

He spent most of the summer a free agent before returning back home to Sweden to once again play for MODO Hockey, now in HockeyAllsvenskan. 

He played the last two years of his professional career with MODO, serving as captain of the team until his retirement after the 2019-20 campaign. 

His NHL story is full of rarities. It was a rarity to see a Thrashers draft pick to see such success. It was rare for someone drafted in the 8th round to see such success. It was rare for a defenseman at 5 ’10 to see such success. 

But Toby Enstrom did all of that and much, much more.