Return of the King
Now a burgeoning No. 1 goalie, Campbell visits L.A. for first time as a Leaf
LOS ANGELES When Todd McLellan, the head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, spent part of Tuesday attempting to illustrate the importance of a great goaltender to an NHL team’s fortunes, he pointed out a couple of practical truths.
For one thing, McLellan said, a goaltender is the only player who ideally stays on the ice for all 60 minutes of regulation and beyond, if necessary.
“We never talk about that,” McLellan said, “but he plays every minute of every game.”
For another, a goaltender’s presence is essential to making any skate a successful one.
“We wouldn’t have practice if we didn’t have two of ’em,” McLellan said. “Everybody would just quit hockey. They’re that important.”
But beyond the importance of logging minutes and holding the shooters’ practice-ice interest, McLellan, speaking in the lead-up to Wednesday’s Maple Leafs-Kings game at Staples Center, enumerated another way a man in the mask can affect his team. Like a commanding baseball pitcher whose excellence seems to buoy the team behind him, McLellan said a goaltender of a certain standard — and he was speaking, specifically, of L.A.’s Jonathan Quick — can do far more than merely stop pucks.
“The way they carry themselves in the locker room, the way they react to situations, the way they behave around their teammates. Are they buying or selling what the coaches are trying to apply? That’s all important,” McLellan said.
“And these hall of fame goaltenders have that. They have a way of unifying your group and bringing the message all together. Quickie’s that guy.”
With two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy and two Jennings Trophies, Quick, at age 35, is certainly building a resumé that will one day earn consideration from the Hockey Hall of Fame’s selection committee, not to mention the respect of his peers.
“He’s just the man,” said Jack Campbell, the Maple Leafs goaltender, speaking of Quick, under whom Campbell apprenticed during parts of four seasons with the Kings.
But while Campbell is far earlier in his NHL journey — he has started 93 career games to Quick’s 666 — the Maple Leafs netminder can make a case as the league’s man of the moment. Whether or not you believe in the concept of the revenge game, Campbell comes into what figures to be his first start in Los Angeles as a member of the Maple Leafs living remarkably well. A little less than two years since the Kings shipped him to Toronto in a pre-deadline deal, it goes without saying that Campbell has used his new opportunity to establish his credentials as a certifiable No. 1 starter.
Among the 35 NHL goaltenders who’ve played at least 40 games since the day Campbell arrived in Toronto, nobody has a better save percentage than Campbell’s .929. Nobody has a better goals-against average than Campbell’s 2.04.
Not that it would be a good idea to mention those numbers to Quick, who spent part of Tuesday answering a question about his own impressive statistics this season by pointing out how little attention he pays to most statistics.
“The people that pay attention to those numbers are not watching the games, or they don’t really have a great idea what’s going on in the games,” said Quick, who mixed in a couple of expletives for good measure. “Whether those numbers are good or bad, beware the guys who really like to talk about those numbers. They usually don’t know what they’re talking about.”
The only numbers that matter, Quick said, are wins. And on that front, Campbell is acquitting himself rather well, too.
He has 10 wins in 15 starts this season. Only Frederik Andersen, the ex-Leaf who’s won 11 times in Carolina, has more.
And as for the notion that Campbell might be having an effect beyond the saves he makes — as difficult as it is to quantify, there are those who’d suggest Campbell’s famously loosey-goosy off-ice demeanour is helping the Maple Leafs weather the endurance test of an 82-game grind.
“(Campbell) has been awesome. He’s playing some really good hockey,” said Toronto defenceman Jake Muzzin, the former King who is expected to play his first game at Staples Center as a Maple Leaf on Wednesday. “Obviously, he’s really fun around the rink. He’s pretty light, a goofy guy. But his on-ice performance has been great. As a team we’ve enjoyed playing in front of him.
“(Campbell’s lightness) is nice because it’s a long season. There’s a lot of hockey. So you can’t be too uptight and too serious all the time. If you’re not enjoying it, it can be a long year for some guys. To have guys that keep it light around the rink is always enjoyable, and it helps.”
One thing that hasn’t been kept light, of course, is Campbell’s workload. When he takes the ice Wednesday he’ll be on pace for 62 starts this season — a steep number for a guy who’s never started more than 25 in an NHL campaign.
While Toronto has generally been loathe to use a No. 2 option in net save for games on back-to-back nights since Petr Mrazek went down with a groin injury more than three week ago, Keefe said he and his staff have been contemplating giving Campbell a night off in a non-back-to-back situation as soon as this Western swing, which continues Friday in San Jose and Monday in Anaheim.
That rookie Joseph Woll is coming off a 20-save shutout in Sunday’s win at the Islanders certainly makes it an easier case.
“Even before Joe played his game the other night, we’d talked about how it would be nice to get a nonback-to-back game out of our backup goaltender,” Keefe said. “So we’ll continue to look at that. Obviously, Joe’s performance the other night didn’t hurt that cause.”
If you’re looking at it from Quick’s perspective, neither was the cause weakened by Woll’s performance in his NHL debut, in which he gave up four goals but achieved the ultimate objective — earning the win a 5-4 squeaker over the Sabres.
“You win 6-5, you feel good after the game. It doesn’t matter what the score was,” Quick said. “You lose 1-0, you leave the game thinking about what you could have done differently.
“The more games you play in this league, the more you realize that’s what it’s about.”