A WOLL AND A WAY
Goaltender restores confidence just in time
Ilya Samsonov got first, second, third and two-thirds of a fourth crack at the Bruins.
None of it felt calm or calming. That’s how the Russian rolls: tends goal like his hair is on fire.
Joseph Woll, by comparison, is shaggy bro flow. What’s up top and what’s between the ears.
In this moment — and it’s all about the tick-tock moments now, the minutes in an hour of another door-die game — the Maple Leafs have thrown in their lot with the unflappable alternate between the pipes. Because to call Woll No. 2 in Toronto’s netminding hierarchy is not conclusively correct. The status shifts.
The rangy 25-year-old is arguably why the Leafs lived to fight another day by cold-cocking the Bruins at TD Garden in Game 5. While Sheldon Keefe didn’t definitively announce who will start Thursday’s Game 6, it’s a no-brainer.
“It’s a good sign. That was a big game for him … to go in and show that confidence,“the coach was saying on the eve of. “Obviously we need him to continue with that. Team defence has got to do its job, and then if there’s a breakdown the goalie has to do his job. That’s what we saw. Joseph didn’t get tested a lot, didn’t get a lot of work in that first period. It can be tough mentally — the team’s played really well and you’ve give up one on two shots.
“He didn’t let that affect him. He just stayed with it and didn’t let the next one go in.”
One goal on two shots in that opening frame but all 26 stops after that, including a bunch of rather spectacular saves in the third and a clutch pad block on Charlie Coyle early in overtime.
“I’m having the time of my life out there,” Woll said in the celebratory dressing room. Somewhat familiar surroundings for him, too — at least the ga-ga Boston crowd part of it — having honed his skills at Boston College for three years after coming through the U.S. National Team Development Program: Big Goalie On Campus.
“This is a place I’ve played a lot of big games, and to come in here and play the Bruins in an elimination game is pretty special. I thought from the drop of the puck our team had a different level of urgency and made me confident back there.”
Only three other Leafs rookie goalies have won two drop-dead elimination games: Gord McRae, Félix Potvin and John Ross Roach.
Weirdly, Game 6 doesn’t loom as a particularly advantageous homeice scenario. Toronto dropped both games at Scotiabank Arena in this first-round series. However, as Woll noted, this was a palpably different team that staved off eradication in Game 5. Sphincters must be tightening for the Bruins — they went down this same heave-ho road last spring from 3-1 up against the Florida Panthers — while the Leafs should be digging their spurs into momentum.
Woll’s presence, his superb acquittal and serene demeanour on Tuesday, Botoxed stability into Toronto’s game face. “I feel pretty safe when he’s in net,” said OT hero Matthew Knies. “I trust him a lot.”
The outside noise appears to bother Woll not a whit, nor the pressure. It doubtless helped that he got sprung into the Game 4 defeat — came off the bench for the third period and didn’t allow a goal, thus segued smoothly into the Game 5 start. The lone puck that beat him caromed off a skate in the midst of a chaotic forecheck and right onto the stick of Trent Frederic. Not a split-second to react.
Woll isn’t a post-season naif. He assumed the goaltending reins a year ago after Samsonov got knocked out with an injury midway through the Game 3 fray of the second round with Florida, which Toronto lost in overtime. Won Game 4, then took the OT loss in Game 5 that sent the Leafs packing.
For a good long while this season, after Samsonov struggled from October through December, it appeared that Woll had seized the net, supplanting the No. 1 while posting a .916 save percentage in 15 games. Then he went down with a high ankle sprain that got him diverted into rehab quarters for almost three months. He looked nowhere near as sharp upon his return down the stretch.
“It can be easy to get into that mindset of trying to get back where you were, but I think ultimately I am where I am now,” Woll told the Star last week. “It’s not so much trying to get back to where I was, but be who I am now and just get back into the flow of the game. I think if you’re trying to return to a place, it means you’re not really growing too much.”
He’s grown, yup, having a playoff spurt. Looks to be putting down roots in the net, too, come what may.