It was around Christmas when former Komet Mike Embach decided it was time to come home from Scotland and try to find a new team to play with.

Of course, he got plenty of advice from one of his best buds, Komets forward Shawn Szydlowski.

“When he first heard I was coming back, he messaged me and said, `Anywhere but Toledo,’” Embach recalled. “I didn’t say anything back for a while. All I got back was a text, `MIKE?’ Two days later when I had officially signed, he sent, `Ugh.’”

Yes, former Komets favorite Mike Embach is now one of Toledo’s veterans. After scoring 18 goals and 51 points in 61 games last year to finish up his fourth season with Fort Wayne, Komets management decided to go in another direction, and Embach didn’t fit among their four veterans spots. He started the season in Scotland, but…

“You take for granted the PHPA (Professional Hockey Players Association), that is for certain when you go to Europe,” he said, “all the little things from the way you are treated in the locker room, the living situation, the organization, the coaching, the reffing. Every little thing you take for granted over here, it really makes you appreciate it when you do come back. I loved the living situation, the hockey was OK, our team had spurts of being good and spurts of being real bad, we had a first-year coach and it was kind of up and down for a couple of months too many.”

Ever since he left for Europe in the fall, Embach said he’d been receiving emails from ECHL teams asking if he was interested in returning, but the final problem was getting limited playing time while his mother and girlfriend were visiting. Embach, 30, said his only priority was signing with a team that could make a long playoff run. It also helped that his best friend, former Komets goaltender Pat Nagle, was Toledo’s goaltender this season.

“It’s a top-notch organization and everything I’ve heard from the years in the league,” Embach said. “Obviously, I’ve played for some good ones. It’s the closest team I’ve ever seen to being run like an American Hockey League team.”

So, of course, the Komets and Walleye meet in the second round of the ECHL’s Kelly Cup playoffs starting Saturday in Toledo. Having Embach and Nagle in Toledo just adds to the drama and anticipation for the opposing players and fans.

“To my mind, it was an inevitability,” Embach said. “Geeze, the division was stacked this year. Coming back, I knew it had a high probability. If you want to win it all, you have to go through the best teams anyway, so it’s a good challenge. For me, it’s added incentive of wanting to beat your buddies, but I’ve been on the other side of the rivalry, and I know how much we hated each other. Not much has changed for me. It’s just going to be a different jersey this time.”

But it’s to be a little surreal for Embach who scored 87 goals and 215 points in 236 games as a Komet. He also added 15 goals and 39 points in 49 playoff games. He scored five goals and 14 points in 23 regular-season games with Toledo this season and was held scoreless during the first-round sweep of Indy.

Embach said he still keeps in touch with five or six of the Komets, and knows there won’t be any friends on the ice but said he holds no grudges against the Fort Wayne organization. That’s just the business of hockey, he said.

“Dave (Komets General Manager David Franke) has never been anything but honest with me and gave me every opportunity,” Embach said. We have talked over just about every aspect of the Komets organization inside and out. Was it the way I would have liked to leave? No, but I know that it’s a business, and those are the decisions they made to keep certain parts of the leadership group or the core, we’ll say. There’s no hard feelings from me toward anyone in the front office. They took care of me better than they ever had to.”

Still, it’s got to feel a little bit odd this time.

“I don’t know who it’s going to be mentally more difficult playing against, but as for me, I know I’m much more of a pain in the a– to play against than a lot of guys,” Embach said with a laugh. “I’m positive with everything. I don’t hold grudges like that. It’s just a game, just a series, and obviously, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure at the end we are going through the handshake line and I’m smiling.”