Four months ago, James Reimer was the goalie nobody believed in on a team going nowhere. That’s all changed.
They carried the past and present on their backs. There were Keons, Bauns, Salmings and Sittlers. Potvins and Clarks. Gilmours and Sundins. There were folk heroes—Tuckers, Domis and Borschevskys. Current dreams—Lupuls and Kessels and Kadris. A wide, rising sea of blue and white, fed by roaring rivers of fans flowing through the subways, pouring from Union Station and into the Air Canada Centre. Outside they worshipped in the sleet and rain, fighting cold and doubt by shouting louder, louder and louder still, until their hope burst through the walls and joined the crescendo inside. And the players, they swore they could hear it. This was game six in a playoff-starved city—a game given to Toronto in part by a young, scrappy team, but mostly by a masked man who’d worked magic between the pipes. James Reimer’s exceptional performance in Boston had rescued the Toronto Maple Leafs from elimination by the Bruins. And yet, in the swell of fans outside and in, his name was scarcely seen. In fact, looking down from the press box, only one REIMER 34 jersey was visible. It sat about 10 rows back, to the right of the penalty box, directly in front of a BOWER 1 jersey, an homage to the great, ageless Johnny. For Reimer, the game-five hero, nothing sums up his career in Toronto better than that.
Until now. Down 3–1 in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs, Reimer led the Leafs all the way back—willing and inspiring his team to game seven. His clutch play silenced the criticism that followed him through his first three seasons as the Leafs’ primary guy in goal. Since pulling that blue and white sweater over his head, Reimer has faced scrutiny and doubt about whether he’s the right man to lead Toronto. The 25-year-old was too inexperienced for the job, said some. Too inconsistent. Prone to injury. Unable to steal games when it mattered. Unable to control rebounds. Reimer took it in, adjusted, and got better. In his characteristically charming, aw-shucks manner, he worked to improve his game. And this post-season he finally proved the Leafs’ trust wasn’t misguided, leading them to a shocking first-round comeback. He pulled the Leafs to wins in games five and six. A game-seven win seemed certain for the Leafs, with the team leading 4–1 with 10 minutes to go in the third—when the Bruins and Leafs teamed up for the most epic comeback/collapse in recent memory. Reimer allowed only three goals through nearly eight and a half periods before the Bruins put a hat trick past him to tie the game. In the end, it was an issue of the Bruins’ size and experience outmatching the Leafs in front of their net. Despite Toronto losing in the most emotionally exhausting way possible, there’s something to be said for the experience gained in going the distance with a recent Stanley Cup champ. And Reimer proved his mettle as the Leafs’ marquee keeper.
While Leafs fans might find it difficult to search for positives after such a crippling letdown, this short season established a young core that could become a contender. Nazem Kadri finally emerged as potent threat, and the ever-rushing Jake Gardiner was freed from the minors. Joffrey Lupul tallied 18 points in just 16 regular-season games and Phil Kessel actually found the net against the Bruins. But among them all, the emergence of Reimer is the most promising.
Not that he is particularly concerned about the number of fans who wear his sweater, or overly conscious of his place in Leafs history. Reimer trades in humility—noticeable in every post-game press conference he gives, red-faced with a kind smile, whether he posts a shutout or gets pulled. He’s the product of Morweena, Man.—a tiny hamlet two hours north of Winnipeg—where he grew up attending a tiny Christian school of 100 students. He found his NHL dreams cozying up to broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada with his older brother, two older sisters and their parents, Marlene and Harold. The family, who have operated a house-moving business for five decades, welcomed more than 20 foster kids through the years, opening their doors to anyone they could help. The character you see in Reimer, the relaxed confidence when he faces criticism and trade rumours, was founded there—and in the local evangelical Mennonite church, where he played drums in the worship band. His faith remains a cornerstone in his life. On the back plate of his helmet is an image of Jesus pulling Peter out of the Sea of Galilee, and a Bible passage—Matthew 14:31, “You of little faith, why do you doubt me.”
He reached for those dreams on an outdoor hockey rink near his school. He and his brother, cousins, and friends would play well into freezing darkness for hours under overhead lights. (Sometimes they’d sleep on mattresses in a wooden change room next to the rink, too cold and tired to make the trek home.) Reimer didn’t play organized hockey until he was 12, but he excelled and was eventually drafted by the Red Deer Rebels in the Western Hockey League. If anything could prepare him for the storm of scrutiny he would eventually face in Toronto, it was playing for the Rebels under the demanding expectations of coach Brent Sutter. Living with his sister and her husband in Red Deer, Reimer sometimes returned home after a bad game and locked himself in his room. He’d reject her attempts to bring him dinner, convinced he didn’t deserve to eat. There would be other formative disappointments along the road to Toronto—the broken hand that cost him a chance to attend Canada’s 2006 world junior camp; the torn ligament in his ankle that made him miss most of the 2007–08 WHL season; being sent down to Reading, Pa., in the East Coast Hockey League in 2008. But Reimer persevered through it all, working his way back to the Marlies and eventually getting his first start with the Leafs on Jan. 1, 2011—a 32-save, 5–1 win over the Ottawa Senators. Fans dubbed him “Optimus Reim” through his successful rookie campaign and coach Ron Wilson had to warn the media not to build statues for Reimer as he posted 20 wins with a .921 save percentage and led the Leafs on a late-season push.
But any statues built for Reimer crumbled the following season. He missed 18 games through the end of October and the entire month of November with what the media believed to be a concussion but was later revealed to be a neck injury. After returning from the sidelines, Reimer sparkled at times. He had back-to-back shutouts in early February, blanking Pittsburgh with 25 saves, and then stopping a career-high 49 shots against Ottawa a few days later. Still, the season ended in disappointment. Reimer missed the last six games with an upper-body injury and finished with just 34 games played—three less than in his rookie season. Optimus Reim looked like just another transport truck with his 14 wins, .900 save percentage and 3.10 goals against average.
Just as he had been in Red Deer and with the Marlies, Reimer was once again surrounded by doubt. And once again, he answered the constant questions and criticisms with grace and humility. Through training camp for the lockout-shortened 2013 season, it was unclear if the Leafs would ride Reimer or 26-year-old Ben Scrivens as the starter. They wound up going with Scrivens for the first game against Montreal, and Reimer watched from the bench. He picked up nine starts over the next month—going 6-3 with a .929 save percentage. But he went down with a knee injury just before Valentine’s Day and missed seven games. Into March, it still wasn’t clear which goalie would be tapped to lead the Leafs to the playoffs, if either. Until the trade deadline there was wide speculation that the Leafs would attempt to “upgrade” in net by picking up Roberto Luongo or Miikka Kiprusoff. “If you’re not strong mentally, then things tend not to work out,” he said about ignoring the trade chatter. “So it definitely makes you a better player, and more importantly, a better person.” The Leafs were silent on deadline day, and Reimer finished the regular season with a .924 save percentage, eighth overall, on a team that allowed 32.3 shots per game (fourth worst in the league). Leafs historians will note that Reimer’s save percentage was the highest of any Leafs goalie since the NHL started keeping that stat, besting Hall of Famer Ed Belfour’s 2003 mark of .922. (Skeptics will note Reimer only played in 33 games, a fraction more than half the games Belfour did.)
But in taking Toronto on a come-from-behind journey to game seven against the Boston Bruins, Reimer has shown he is the kind of goalie a team can depend on in the playoffs—the only kind of goalie that really matters. He was decent through the start of the series, including a 41-save loss in game four. But in game five, he lifted his play and the team to a new level. Tied at zero in the second period, the series could have been over when Patrice Bergeron had a wide-open net. But Reimer did the splits to stop the puck with his toe. The save sparked the Leafs, with Tyler Bozak putting them on the board shortly after and Clarke MacArthur netting the winner early in the third of the Leafs’ 2–1 win. Reimer called the save lucky after the game, but his teammates knew how important it was. “Reims is giving us a chance to win hockey games,” says captain Dion Phaneuf. “He looks very confident and calm, and that feeds our team.”
But highlight-reel saves are usually borne of desperation, and the fact that they are few and far between for Reimer is a testament to his steady, positional game. “The hardest thing to do in goaltending is make every save look easy,” says Scrivens. “He tries to stay big, stay square and force the shooter to beat him—and only react and sell the farm when he has to.”
In game six, Reimer made a diving stick stop on Bergeron, who was about to stuff the puck into an empty net on a wraparound in the second period, again with the score tied at zero. The fans in the Air Canada Centre seemed to wake up to the netminder’s role in the team’s future. “REIMER! REIMER! REIMER!” the end above him chanted, while the other side joined in with an off-beat echo, as though building confidence to sing along—“Reimer. Reimer. Reimer.” Even Roberto Luongo, the man who was supposed to take his place, chimed in with praise: #REIMS4SOCHI, he tweeted, offering his thoughts on Canada’s Olympic roster. It wasn’t until the final 30 seconds, with the Leafs leading 2–1 and the Bruins taking a desperate time out, that the roar finally burst out in truly rink-shaking unison—“REIMER! REIMER! REIMER!” it went, anointing the Leafs’ new king in the net and mocking the Bruins for failing to solve him.
Reimer’s performance in the first round of the playoffs catapulted him into the conversation of the top playoff goalies through round one. It wasn’t just his stats that put him there. It was also the timeliness of his stops—the ability to give the Leafs momentum and confidence to open up their game. Reimer was named the first star for his 29 saves in game six, and he skated out into the still-filled rink, stick held high and proud, with a humble, red-faced grin. “Thanks a lot, guys!” he said into a microphone, barely audible over the cheers. “You guys are awesome!”
And slowly, outside, that roaring blue-and-white sea receded. The fans flowed back into the streets and through the subways, to their homes and beds and midnight dreams. And though game seven would be a crushing blow, it was these stolen moments that mattered. Reimer may not have been on their backs, but he was in their hearts for good.
This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine. Subscribe here.