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In between, the man his pals called “King” lived a life — oh my goodness, he surely did. He played extraordinary hockey at the highest levels and became a heroic figure both in his native Sweden and here in Canada.

That his final games were played as a member of the Detroit Red Wings, well, let’s just forget that, shall we? It was an 11th-hour escape from the futility of having great aspirations while playing for a team owned by Harold Ballard. Otherwise, he started as a Maple Leaf and surely should have ended that way.

Salming’s death, announced Thursday, was the result of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, which came upon him as a darkening storm last year and quickly took away most of the functions that help us enjoy daily life. Salming was 71. Earlier this year, we lost Guy Lafleur at age 70 and Mike Bossy at 65, and we are left to wonder at life that bestows such extraordinary talent upon hockey players and then ends their lives far, far too early.

Like Lafleur and Bossy, Salming was an original, a graceful player forced to overcome the ugliest parts of the sport.

“He blazed the trail that many of the greatest players in NHL history followed while shattering all of the stereotypes about European players,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in a statement.

With Salming, there was always a soulfulness about him, perhaps the product of his early days growing up north of Arctic Circle in Kiruna, Sweden. When he carefully made his way on to the ice at Scotiabank Arena before the Leafs hosted the Canucks less than two weeks ago, it was shocking to see what the disease had done to him. His suffering was clear and obvious.

Still, flanked by former Leafs captains Darryl Sittler and Mats Sundin, he gave his best effort to acknowledge the love and adoration he was offered. In so doing, he demonstrated that, yes, the Leafs organization does indeed have soul, probably more now than in many decades.

The stars of the current team (Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly and William Nylander) are the most talented the Leafs have gathered since the days of Salming, Darryl Sittler, Ian Turnbull and Lanny McDonald. The past half-century of ��ѻ��ý hockey history has been chopped into chunks — starts and restarts, teardowns and rebuilds — but there is a poetic connection between the Leafs teams put together in the early 1970s by Jim Gregory and those constructed over the past six years under the thoughtful eye of team president Brendan Shanahan.

It’s been that long since Leafs teams were put together with such logical design and patience, and it’s no coincidence Shanahan grew up watching Sittler, Salming and Company. The teams that featured Salming were probably underappreciated at the time, and one wonders if the current squad is, as well.

With Salming, it’s hard to place him precisely in Leafs history because he was a chapter unto himself. His path was so unique.

European players were completely dismissed by NHL talent hunters until the Soviets gave Team Canada all it could handle in 1972, and Salming arrived a year after that courtesy of some hustling by Leafs scout and future general manager Gerry McNamara. That it was the Leafs who had the foresight to give him a chance while at the same time carelessly losing some of their best talent to the upstart World Hockey Association is one of the most glaring contradictions in team history.

Salming had a more difficult path than most of the Leafs greats who came before him, and those who followed. He skated differently, played differently and saw the game differently, beyond the straight lines insisted upon by traditional hockey folks. Bobby Orr had changed the way people understood defence, and then Salming added a few flourishes of his own while the meaner elements of the game conspired to thwart his artistry.

His skill and imagination were further brutalized by playing for Ballard, who nonetheless had enormous respect for Salming, more than he demonstrated for Sittler and McDonald. That said, when Salming played his 1,000th game in a Leafs uniform, the first European player to reach that total, Ballard was away in the Cayman Islands and no ceremony was held. It wasn’t until 11 winless games later that Salming’s feat was recognized at Maple Leaf Gardens, with a new car and surprise visit from his parents.

Forces from without and within did everything to prevent Salming from fully realizing his greatness. Unlike Lafleur and Bossy, he was never surrounded by a championship-quality roster. After Sittler left in January 1982, Salming played with an ever-changing assortment of fringe players, unproven kids and over-the-hill vets for the remainder of his time in ��ѻ��ý.

Still, his brilliance shone through. One was always left to wonder how good he could have been with another organization. If you define Orr partly by how his career was cut brutally short by knee injuries, then you should also consider how Salming was hobbled by playing for the Leafs.

Incredibly, his dignity as an athlete remained intact throughout his NHL days. If he complained, he never did so publicly. For 16 years, he played and competed and endured in ��ѻ��ý. And after that stop in Detroit, he quietly went home.

Now, after months of terrible suffering that brought former teammates to tears, he’s truly gone home. The Leafs haven’t won in a long, long time, but Salming was surely evidence that the team once had soul. And because of him, it still does.