TORONTO — Over the course of six seasons and nearly 200 NHL appearances, James Reimer has been cast in many different lights.
The solution. The saviour. The slighted. The second fiddle.
And now, in this most unpredictable of Toronto Maple Leafs seasons, he is The Reborn.
Reimer is currently enjoying the kind of run few would have predicted we’d see from him again, stopping 43 shots in Saturday’s 4-2 win over Vancouver to boost his save percentage to .925 on the season.
Most notably, he’s taken advantage of a window of opportunity that opened when Jonathan Bernier went down with a lower-body injury on Oct. 31. That gave him the chance to start seven games over a 13-day period, and to lead the Atlantic Division’s last-place team to a 4-1-2 record during that stretch.
If the 27-year-old feels like he’s proven something to the organization in the process, he’s not letting on.
“I’m always just trying to prove it to myself and to my teammates,” said Reimer. “I have my own expectations, I have to look myself in the mirror and that’s the person I try and prove (it to). Every day it’s just about trying to get better and not giving up and just competing.
“It’s not so much about what other people think, it’s about what I can do.”
The win over the Canucks came in the kind of game where Reimer always seems to thrive. He was sprawling in every direction during a frantic third period where Vancouver fired 25 shots at him — and had two goals called back.
While it was low on style points for both Reimer and his teammates, they still managed to find a way.
“Well I thought he played good,” Babcock said of Reimer. “Good for him, he made some saves, there was some point-blank chances tonight that we don’t like to give up.”
It was a performance that left Babcock’s decision about who starts at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night an interesting one. The coach said he wouldn’t make a call one way or another until conferring with his assistants on the flight to New York.
For the first time since early in the 2013-14 season — Bernier’s first in the blue and white — the goalie competition appears to be a true competition.
While Babcock is the kind of coach who likes to roll consistently with one starter, and had envisioned that starter to be Bernier, he hasn’t hidden his disappointment with the de facto No. 1’s performance prior to his injury.
“We’ve got to get him back and get him practising and get him playing the way he’s capable of playing,” Babcock said of Bernier earlier this week. “We haven’t seen much of that this year.”
Instead, it is Reimer who has contributed some unexpected points in the standings.
The timing couldn’t be any better for a man who is set to become an unrestricted free agent this summer — a fact that will become more important to Leafs management the longer he outplays Bernier, who carries a $4.15-million AAV through the end of next season.
In the meantime, the Leafs will continue to roll along with very few expectations and more question marks popping up in the crease.
They’ve beaten Dallas, Nashville and Vancouver in successive games — prompting Reimer to say he sees “a guy that’s having fun” when he looks in the mirror.
The goaltender focused hard on his training prior to a make-or-break year, and believes it’s paying off now. Should he be asked to start against the Rangers on Sunday, he’ll be ready.
“It’s been a lot of hockey, but playing hockey’s fun,” said Reimer. “I’ll see what the coach has to say, but if I get the tap then I’m going to go in there and give it my all.”
The Leafs should expect nothing less.
