Roman Polak didn't want his teammates to visit. The big scowling Czech defenceman was lying in a hospital bed, drifting in the fog delivered by his post-surgery painkillers. He is pretty sure he didn't have a TV, but he had a laptop ... yes, he definitely had a laptop. When asked about those five or six days, he can't remember much of what he did. But he remembers that he didn't want his teammates to see him like that. That stuck.

It's been a long, slow, painful recovery for Leaf blueliner Roman Polak. ( Graig Abel / Getty Images )

"They had a tough schedule, and I didn't want them to see me, there," says Polak now, five months after 13 screws were installed to repair the broken leg he suffered in Game 2 of the Toronto Maple Leafs' first-round series against Washington. "I'd rather stay by myself. I don't know. I didn't feel good after the surgery, and it was painful, and I didn't want anybody to see me as I'm laying there in the bed, you know, struggling. I don't like that." He almost stumbles, the big tough guy, before a grin pushes his heavy, permanently five o'clock-shadowed cheeks to the side. "And I was on drugs too, so mostly I was just high. I probably wouldn't remember it."

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Polak is in camp for the Leafs, and you can tell. In one drill at a morning skate before Tuesday's pre-season loss to Ottawa he pokes at centre Dominic Moore, and knocks down Patrick Marleau. He is also part of what might be the last generation of true smash 'n' bash defencemen. After he cross-checked Connor McDavid during a World Cup warm-up and Auston Matthews retaliated by cross-checking Polak, Polak's assessment of the Matthews hit was, "good technique." "He likes to hit people," says Matthews. "That's what that definitely told me. He actually hit me pretty good earlier that game." And while it's hard to be a basher in a league that gets faster every second, Polak was one of coach Mike Babcock's security blankets last season. But the injury — that half-twirl into the air, the landing — was gruesome, and it's a long road back. Goaltender Frederik Andersen was right next to former Leaf Stephane Robidas when he suffered one of his broken legs, and thought right away this was the same thing. "Well, he's just got to get healthy," says Babcock. "To tell you the truth, I haven't paid any attention to him, until he's in a situation to play in a game, it's just a matter of him on rehab." The night of the injury Polak was devastated: As teammate Nazem Kadri puts it, "he wasn't in good shape." Beyond his emotions, it was the most pain Polak had ever experienced, and that included the time a puck tore through his cheek and he returned to the bench with stitches. As the Leafs landed back in Toronto he felt the cabin pressure squeeze his leg: surgery provided some relief. And that was the start.

"After three weeks here I went home, and I felt just useless," says Polak. "Because you are on the crutches and playing with the kids or something, and I just can't do anything. So you're there but you're not there, because you just can't help. So basically for my wife I was basically like the third kid." His 5-year-old daughter Isabella would dote on him, bringing him cookies, candy, and drinks; his 2-year-old son Markus delighted in swinging the crutches around. "He was smacking everything," says Polak, with a note of fatherly pride. (He has both their names tattooed in script on his right arm, and once wore matching Halloween costumes with Isabella.) He spent three months on crutches. When the cast came off, he found he was a one-legged man.

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"Oh, there was nothing there," said Polak. "The thigh and the calf just disappeared."

Roman Polak lies on the ice after being injured during the second period of Game 2 against the Washington Capitals ( Molly Riley/The Associated Press )

The rehabilitation clinic is outside his hometown of Ostrava, and it specialized in car crash victims — as Polak puts it, "they teach people to walk again, so they were prepared." He started by walking in the pool. But, uh, Roman ... how did you get there? "Yeah, I shouldn't have been driving," he says, abashed. "But I had a left foot on the brake and the right foot on the gas, and I had to lift