Sparks takes his best shot in West sweep
On Friday night in Anaheim, Garret Sparks got lucky. No, not just because one oh-my-god Anaheim shot deflected off Jake Gardiner’s skate like he was deflecting a bullet with a sword. And no, it wasn’t because another oh-no Anaheim shot hit Nikita Zaitsev in the back of the leg and the puck stayed out again, somehow. That was lucky too, in the way that in hockey, physics sometimes seems to choose sides.
But more than that, Garret Sparks was lucky because it was the second night of a back-to-back, less than a week after the last second night of a back-to-back, so the backup goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs got to get off the bench and play again. He got to start.
And in a strange, sloppy, no-finish game, the 25-yearold Sparks stopped 38 of 39 shots and got to stand up straight and lean on his crossbar and watch as John Tavares turned a puck up ice late in overtime, and Mitch Marner did a stutter-step dance to expertly freeze the defenceman and sync up the play, and then hit Morgan Rielly for a flying game-winner.
“Well, the support’s been crazy ever since that (5-1 loss to Boston last Saturday) ended,” Sparks said to reporters in Anaheim after the game.
“It’s been (goaltender coach) Steve Briere and the rest of the coaching staff just being business as usual, appreciating the attitude that I bring on a daily basis of just wanting to work and get better.
“And obviously everybody in the room has just been on my side the entire time, and when you have so many peo-
ple supporting you — in the room, outside the room — it makes it a lot easier to just relax and play your game and compete and focus on the puck and just silence everything else.”
Being a backup goaltender is a lesson in the ups and downs of the small sample size, even before you add Toronto’s strategy, which is to only deploy said goaltender in near-emergencies.
The Leafs don’t have another back-to-back until Dec. 22 and 23 against the New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings, and then Dec. 28 and 29 at Columbus and home to the Islanders. There’s one at the start of February and one at the end. March features two within a week again: Philly and at Ottawa, at Nashville and in Buffalo. Frederik Andersen may not quite reach 70 games — he has played 66 each of the past two years — but that’s all the guaranteed starts Sparks has this season.
So every game is huge for him, and Sparks spent the week trying not to be down after getting drilled against Boston. Before that he had stopped 33 of 34 against the ragged remains of the Los Angeles Kings; before that he was the winner in a 7-6 shootout against Chicago. It added up to an .879 save percentage. Not good, but it was three games.
“I think I made saves (against the Bruins), and I think my biggest error in that game was maybe not, you know, being free and getting into the flow of the game and enjoying the experience, and maybe just trying a little too hard,” Sparks said this past week. He was asked if this gig is hard: stay late after practices and morning skates, face every shot that a teammate wants to send at you, from Trevor Moore to Justin Holl to the injured Auston Matthews, and start a real live no-mercy NHL game about once or twice a month.
“Yeah, and nobody understands that challenge, right?” said Sparks. “You sit almost 30 days between a start and you want to be good for the team on a back-to-back and you want to do everything you can to support them, and try and steal a game (for) them. Maybe you think about it a little too much rather than just go out there and compete and let the game come to you, and let everybody respond based on the energy that you’re giving off.
“Everybody is doing their part to help, everybody on the coaching staff: Steve (Briere) is pouring tons of resources and time into trying to make sure that I’m ready. And even the rest of the coaching staff ... have been great, too. It’s just a new position to be in and you don’t realize how many different positions of goaltender there are until you’re in a different position of goaltending, and your job has changed a little bit.
“I’m working on it on a daily basis. I wouldn’t say I’m better or worse at it so far.”
After Anaheim he was better, but it’s still just four games. Sparks worked his way from unheralded seventh-rounder to the lead dog for the Marlies en route to the Calder Cup last season. Different positions of goaltender is a good way to put it. This Leafs team has the potential to put together something special: They are 14-6-0, good for third in the NHL in points percentage, narrowly behind Nashville and division rival Tampa. Matthews isn’t back yet, but he will be; William Nylander might even return, too. Every point matters if they want this division title. All Garret Sparks has to do is to figure out how best to be a part of it.