Beat the Stars, lose the star

McElhinney comes to the rescue after Andersen leaves with upper-body injury

Curtis McElhinney was as shocked as everyone else in the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday night when, in the middle of the second period of the Maple Leafs-Stars game, Frederik Andersen pulled himself from the proceedings.

“No heads-up really. It was just one of those things. I’m sitting there (charting) faceoffs, and the next thing I know they’re handing my gloves to me,” McElhinney said. “It was a strange game.” “Strange” was one way to describe Toronto’s 6-5 shootout win over the Dallas Stars. On a night when Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock chastised his team for the dismal 35 minutes of effort it put forth after taking a 2-0 lead less than five minutes into the first period — a lull that saw Dallas reel off four unanswered goals to take a 4-2 lead — the Leafs made it a game in the third period. Tying it 4-4, falling behind 5-4, scoring with 16 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime, the Leafs rode James van Riemsdyk’s third career hat trick to a thrilling victory thanks in part to shootout goals from Tyler Bozak and Mitch Marner.

But it wasn’t simply the on-ice drama that got minds racing in Leafland. Andersen’s exit, with what the team termed an “upper-body injury,” was anxiety-fuelling stuff, for the fan base and McElhinney alike.

“The heart rate spikes,” McElhinney said, speaking of his bodily reaction to his spur-of-the-moment call to service. “I think it would be interesting to see what that looks like on a heart-rate monitor. But it certainly goes up. And the adrenalin starts pumping.”

McElhinney, it should be said, wasn’t horrible in relief, allowing two goals on 15 shots. He hasn’t been bad all season. But anyone who watches this team knows what a less-than-healthy Andersen means to Toronto’s fortunes; it almost certainly sinks them.

Andersen is the club’s MVP, and it’s not close.

McElhinney, though he’s been a credible fill-in on the second night of back-to-back sets this season, is a career backup whose entire playoff resume consists of one 34minute stretch of relief for the Calgary Flames back in 2009. Neither of Toronto’s top couple of minor-league goaltenders — Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard — has ever stepped into the crease during an NHL postseason game, although both Sparks and Pickard have been putting up excellent AHL numbers.

Babcock, at least, didn’t appear alarmed by Andersen’s disappearance from the ice surface.

“It didn’t seem like much … It’s an upper-body injury,” Babcock said. “I wanted (McElhinney) to get warmed up for (Thursday night’s game in Buffalo). He’s playing (Thursday), anyway.”

Whatever ails Andresen, there’ll be those who blame Roman Polak. It was Polak who launched Dallas’s Alex Radulov into a net-front tumble that ended with Radulov essentially landing on An- dersen’s head. Andersen was clearly shaken up by the contact; he took a long moment to gather himself before resuming play. But resume play he did, carrying on with the final few minutes of the first period and playing 10:25 into the second period, at which point he pulled himself from the game.

Certainly, if Radulov was your culprit — and the Stars forward served two minutes for goaltender interference on the play in question, even if Polak nudged him in Andersen’s direction — you weren’t the only one aggrieved by his presence. Four shifts into Andreas Johnsson’s first NHL game on Wednesday night, the point-agame AHL winger found himself in the dressing room seeking treatment after a Radulov body check ended with Johnsson’s visor opening a gash above Johnsson’s right eye.

“Nine stitches. A nice souvenir,” said Johnsson, a seventhround pick in 2013 who finally climbed pro hockey’s ladder to its top step. “I just thought it was a little scratch. And after a couple of minutes (with medical staff ) I was like, ‘How’s it going?’ They were, like, ‘Half- way.’ And I was, like, ‘Halfway? Are you serious? I want to go back on the ice.’ It took a while.”

Hockey, of course, is sometimes a game of patience. Consider van Riemsdyk in the opening moments of the home team’s ultimately uplifting third period. Down 4-2, he pounced on a net-side rebound. His first shot, a quick stab at the puck, plunked off Kari Lehtonen’s pad. So van Riemsdyk pounced on the rebound again.

And his second shot — well, he actually fanned on that one. And by this point, if the defence of the Dallas Stars had been more awake and hockey were still a game played by mean men with a licence to maim, there’s a good chance van Riemsdyk would have been cross-checked into oblivion by a heathen brandishing the nearest Sher-Wood. But on Wednesday van Riemsdyk held his ground, recovered from his flub, and patiently flipped the puck into the visitors’ net.

He scored two more. And though van Riemsdyk didn’t get credit on the scoresheet when Patrick Marleau tipped in the Mitch Marner shot that tied the game with 16 seconds to go and the goalie pulled, it was van Riemsdyk whose backside was firmly planted in Lehtonen’s line of sight.

“Any time you get three goals and you’re at the net for the fourth goal, too, you’ve done something pretty special,” Babcock said. “He hadn’t scored for a bit.”

That’s true; van Riemsdyk hadn’t scored in his previous four games. His hat trick, though, vaulted him into the team lead with 29 goals on the season. His career high is 30, achieved a few years back.

“I try to get better and better every year,” he said. “Obviously there’s certain milestones that are pretty cool to hit, so we’ll see what happens.”

More to the point, said van Riemsdyk: “Obviously you never like to see guys like (Andersen) go down … We’ll see what the word is on Freddy and go from there.”

Until there’s word that all’s clear on that front, heart rates will spike.