TORONTO -- Just 21 years old, Jiri Tlusty already has learned much about professional hockey and also about life, about youthful indiscretions and the power of the Internet.
He has been scouted, drafted, played and traded. He has been lauded and lamented. He has seen provocative photos of himself create a brief if intense furor, splashed on a newspaper's front page and creating thousands of hits online.
Finally, Tlusty seems happy to be wanted again, to be a part of the Carolina Hurricanes' organization.
"It's good to make a fresh start," he said recently. "To start at zero again and work hard and try to show I deserve to play in the NHL."
It's probably an understatement to say the forward is excited about being in the Canes' lineup tonight against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"I will love to play against them," he said last week. "It's always nice to play against your old team and teammates. I think it'd be a great opportunity to play against them and do it in their building."
The Leafs made Tlusty (pronounced T'LOO-stee) their first-round pick - and the 13th overall selection - in the 2006 NHL draft. In October 2007, the young Czech made his NHL debut, scoring two goals against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
A dreamy beginning, perhaps, but the good times did not last long.
A month later, the photos of Tlusty surfaced online. The details of them are well-chronicled. Suffice it to say they were sexual in nature and highly embarrassing for Tlusty, and for the Leafs.
"It was a mistake," Tlusty said. "I figure if I had been somewhere else and not in Toronto is wouldn't be as big a deal as it was in Toronto. But I was in Toronto and everyone follows hockey there, and it was a big deal.
"It was a learning lesson for myself and hopefully for other people. It was a lesson. I didn't hurt anybody. It was my mistake."
That Tlusty will talk publicly about that mistake, that he does not run and hide from it, may say a lot about him and his maturation. And Canes coach Paul Maurice said the frenzy over the photos likely was not one of the underlying reasons the Leafs decided to trade him early last month to the Canes for forward Philippe Paradis, Carolina's first-round pick in the 2009 draft.
Maurice was coaching the Leafs in the 2007-08 season when Tlusty made his debut and played 58 games as a rookie.
"I felt in Toronto when he was there he was a good prospect for our team but that he probably shouldn't have been in the National Hockey League at the time he was there," Maurice said.
Rushed into the league, Tlusty finished with 10 goals and six assists in his first season. He then spent much of the 2008-09 season with the Toronto Marlies of the American Hockey League - scoring five goals on five shots in one memorable game - while getting in just 14 games for the Leafs.
Maurice was fired by the Leafs at the end of the 2007-08 season. His opinion: Tlusty, more of a skilled forward than power forward, didn't fit the plans of general manager Brian Burke and new coach Ron Wilson or the makeup of the team they envisioned.
"I don't know the answer other than style of game," Maurice said. "They were working real hard at getting bigger, stronger, faster, meaner - that type of player.
"When you're trying to change an identity of a team, sometimes players like that get moved. I think [the Leafs] still liked him as a player and thought he was a good prospect, but they were trying to change."
Tlusty's debut with the Canes was an eye-opener, as well. On his first shift, against the Washington Capitals, he scored off the rush on a perfect pass from Brandon Sutter.
"The pressure went down after that first shift," he said, smiling.
Some visa problems needed to be resolved after he had played two games for Carolina. Tlusty then reported to the Albany River Rats of the AHL, but he soon was recalled by the Hurricanes along with forward Zach Boychuk because a slew of injuries.
"He's a highly skilled guy, and he's got a great shot," Boychuk said. "I only saw him three or four games in Albany, but he works hard. He's 6 feet and fairly thick and has the body to keep up with the NHL guys."
In eight games with the Canes, Tlusty has a goal and two assists. In the 4-1 win Sunday over the Ottawa Senators, he had a season-high 15:06 in ice time and assisted on Rod Brind'Amour's winning goal.
Tlusty said it was reassuring to know that, despite the shock of being traded, he would be playing for Maurice.
"He knew me, and I knew him," Tlusty said. "It was probably the biggest thing why I liked that they traded for me. I'm glad for this opportunity, and I'm going to do my best here."
Maurice said the ceiling on Tlusty's "best" could be pretty high.
"He's got two or three years of solid development ahead of him before I think we'll get to see what he's really capable of being," Maurice said.
