Canucks' Martin embracing unconventional NHL journey: ‘I don’t take it for granted’

VANCOUVER — The Gerry Cheevers reference that Spencer Martin’s coach dropped Wednesday sailed over the goalie’s head like a high wrister — as it did for most people born since Vancouver Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau reached the age of majority in 1973.

Cheevers had a lengthy National Hockey League career with the Boston Bruins, and children of the 1970s remember he had the coolest mask in hockey —back when goalies wore masks, not cages. The form-fitting plastic offered roughly the protection of a tinfoil plate, and Cheevers decorated his with faux stitches to indicate the facial damage he might have suffered without it.

Cheevers never won a Vezina Trophy, was never close to being the best goalie of his era. But he did have a career record of 230-102-74 and helped the Bruins win a pair of Stanley Cups. He made big saves at big moments.

Which is what Boudreau was alluding to when, after the Canucks eventually survived themselves and beat the San Jose Sharks 6-5 in overtime, he said: “Gerry Cheevers once said he didn't care if he was winning 1-0 or 7-6, but he always stopped the last one. And that's what I feel Marty's like most nights.”

After Friday’s practice at the University of British Columbia, the compliment was explained to Martin, the 27-year-old career minor-leaguer (until this season) who has eight wins in 13 starts for the Canucks — half of them while allowing at least four goals.

“I've seen a Grant Fuhr reference; I understood that one,” Martin told Sportsnet after preparing for Saturday’s game against the Minnesota Wild. “And yes, I definitely respect that — and I hope my teammates respect that — whether I let in 10 goals or one, that I'm going to try to make that next save because that's really all that matters. But I'm not going to settle (for that) and just be a guy who lets in four goals and wins games. I'm going to be pushing towards being better, to where I can completely shut down a game.”

That Martin would be in position to do anything in an NHL game would have seemed preposterous at the start of last season, when the journeyman from Oakville, Ont., was the third-string goalie on the Canucks’ American Hockey League team.

He had arrived in the organization that summer, essentially a giveaway by the Tampa Bay Lightning, which had signed Martin two years earlier in order to expose him in the Seattle expansion draft but ended up tolerating him as a taxi-squad goalie and minor-league backup.

But when finally given the chance to play for the Abbotsford Canucks a year ago, Martin outplayed younger prospects Arturs Silovs and Mikey DiPietro and was first in line (and healthy) when a COVID crisis in Vancouver allowed him to play three games in January. On Jan. 27, in a 33-save 5-1 game against the Winnipeg Jets, Martin picked up his first NHL win at age 26.

Signed after the season to a two-year, one-way contract, Martin is suddenly the Canucks starter after Thatcher Demko suffered a leg injury last week that could keep him out six weeks or longer.

“It's literally been baby step by baby step, whether it's technical (or) the timing of my maturity as a professional,” Martin explained of his unlikely path. “Some of the really hard steps were actually in the two years where I was with Syracuse and Tampa. They were in COVID years and they had (Andrei) Vasilevskiy. They really had no reason for me, right? And that's when it was really, really hard to dig in and start to move slowly in the right direction. 

“Nothing was certain in the world at that very moment and especially, for me, I was kind of past the normal expectancy of a pro goalie's development curve. You know how people look at that. I mean, it is what it is.

“Then when I got here, I felt like I was already on (a better) trajectory. I kind of stuck with it, and didn't lose that momentum. This year has been a completely different adventure as far as coming in (as an NHL goalie) and the responsibilities are way higher. I'm learning to deal with that, but also not looking at myself as a finished product. Looking at goals, like being at the starter level or elite level, I'm not shutting the door on any of that.”

He did, however, shut the door in overtime on Wednesday when Sharks Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier had breakaways. The second of those saves – and the desperate lunge that Martin made at the puck on the rebound – enabled the Canucks to counter-attack and win on Elias Pettersson’s goal.

Martin allowed five goals on 39 shots, which is about as impressive as his .890 save percentage this season. But what was impressive was his best and biggest saves came with the game on the line — and after Martin had allowed the puck to trickle through him on one tying goal and beat him from distance on another. 

His timely performance came after Boudreau hooked him from the previous game when Martin allowed four goals on eight shots against the Montreal Canadiens.

“I love some of the mental capacity that I've been able to display,” Martin said. “There's been moments in games where it's ugly and, outside looking in, it isn't a good situation. There's been situations like that and I've been able to just claw myself back into the game with my team.”

Maybe Martin, who has had to improvise and fight through adversity to build a career, is suited to playing in Vancouver where the Canucks have proved so far to be largely incapable of defending leads or limiting high-danger scoring chances. They are, however, adept at scoring goals and fervent in their self-belief.

After spending the previous seven years in the minors, Martin is embracing this NHL weirdness.

“I don't take it for granted at all,” he said. “Just odds-wise, coming in from these circumstances. . . just step by step things have happened. They continue to happen and I continue to gain more and more confidence and trust in the process. At the same time, I don't want to be satisfied looking back. I think it's really important, especially right now that there's more to gain than ever, to be really in the moment and focused.”

And ready to stop the next breakaway.