TORONTO - When Peter DeBoer clicked on the tube Friday morning, the sight of one of his former pupils dominating at the NHL level put a huge grin on his face.

There was Nazem Kadri, DeBoer’s ex-student with the Kitchener Rangers of the Ontario Hockey League, scoring his first professional hat trick in a 5-4 overtime victory for the Maple Leafs against the New York Islanders on Thursday night.

“Seeing the highlights of Nazem scoring his hat trick against the Islanders made me smile,” the New Jersey Devils coach said in a phone interview this weekend.

And, in the process, reminded DeBoer of some of the characteristics he feels Kadri shares with former Maple Leafs great Doug Gilmour.

Perhaps the biggest buzz created by Kadri came when he completed his hat trick with a brilliant individual toe-drag effort, one that caused the Twitter world to go crazy with suggestions that the jock strap belonging to Isles defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky was still lying on the Nassau Coliseum ice after he was deked out of it on the play.

Spectacular?

Absolutely.

Unexpected?

Not for DeBoer, Kadri’s junior coach during the 2006-07 and 07-08 seasons.

“I’ve seen that goal before,” DeBoer said with a chuckle. “I know he’s capable of that.

“I’m not surprised how Naz is doing right now. He’s a very special talented kid.”

When DeBoer speaks of Kadri’s God-given talents, he notes the unique mixture of skills and determination possessed by the London, Ont., native.

But it is the intangibles that add to the Kadri mystique, especially the fierce competitiveness that leaves him refusing to back down from players who are much bigger than he is, no matter what the consequences.

“He’s always played like that, even when I coached him in junior,” DeBoer said.

“He’s always played with an edge.

“He plays with the same edge as Doug Gilmour did.”