COLUMBUS, Ohio – A professional gambler has more in common with Curtis McElhinney’s job than it might seem at first blush: The odds are always stacked against him, and the sole objective is to succeed just enough to keep his hand in the game.
It can be an agonizing way to carve out a living, especially on a Wednesday night where McElhinney returned to an old haunt and got beat twice on odd-man rushes.
He wasn’t awful. He was far from the only reason the Toronto Maple Leafs left Nationwide Arena with a 4-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. But given his limited window to make a difference, he expressed frustration at seeing his record fall to 3-4-0 on the season.
"Yeah, I’ve got to work out something because obviously what I’m doing now isn’t having the best success," said McElhinney. "So I’ve got to figure that out."
This is the life of the backup goalie.
The Leafs only roll him out for the second half of back-to-back games, which almost always includes travel and never involves a full morning skate to get loosened up and prepared.
"You’re kind of left to your own devices," McElhinney said recently.
The numbers suggest he’s doing a pretty good job of giving the Leafs a chance in the tough situations he plays. He outright stole two points from the Edmonton Oilers with a 41-save shutout on Dec. 10 and now sports a .915 save percentage in 21 appearances since being claimed on waivers by Toronto last January.
That’s average goaltending in today’s NHL and above-average stuff from your No. 2 guy – albeit in a limited sample.
McElhinney holds himself to a high standard and felt as though he misplayed a rush chance from Seth Jones, who caught him leaning towards a potential pass on Wednesday and beat him short side. That gave the Blue Jackets a 2-0 lead and Toronto would never fully recover.
On this night, he was bested by Joonas Korpisalo – the Blue Jackets backup who made 39 saves to beat the Leafs for the fourth time in his young career. The Finn’s emergence prompted Columbus to free up a spot on the NHL roster by waiving McElhinney last season.
He’s since found a good home in Toronto and was rewarded with a $1.7-million, two-year extension over the summer. But he’s got two of the top American Hockey League goalies currently playing behind him with the Marlies – Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard – and knows that winning gives him the best chance to stay in the Leafs crease.
A pair of losses to the Red Wings and Blue Jackets inside a week stung.
"If you’re winning you feel good, but when you’re losing you sure don’t," said McElhinney. "That’s been the result the last couple here and it’s been tough. It would be nice to kind of string that second one together and help out."
Mike Babcock believes his 21-14-1 team can go from good to great by performing better in back-to-back situations. They’ll face seven more of those during the regular season starting with games in Arizona (Dec. 28) and Colorado (Dec. 29) coming out of the Christmas break.
In the wake of an exciting 8-1 victory over Carolina on Tuesday afternoon, the head coach felt his team was outworked by Columbus.
"We had the best back-to-back you can have," said Babcock. "Sometimes you get back-to-back and you get in at two o’clock in the morning and all that stuff. We were in at eight o’clock last night so there’s no reason for us not to be ready here today.
"We weren’t good enough. We had the [Tyler] Bozak line and some ‘D,’ but we didn’t have enough forwards."
It proved to be an eventful night for defenceman Jake Gardiner, and not all of it positive. He got caught adrift in the middle of the ice when Matt Calvert threaded a pass through his feet to set up Lukas Sedlak’s game-opening goal.
"I’ve got to definitely have that guy in front," Gardiner said afterwards.
He also turned the puck over to Jones with a casual play in the offensive zone on the 2-0 goal before scoring in the second period.
The Leafs had too many passengers here. Outside of the Bozak-Mitch Marner-James van Riemsdyk line – which controlled more than 75 per cent of shot attempts at even strength – they didn’t have any other unit generating sustained pressure.
These weren’t ideal conditions for a win since the Blue Jackets were rested and coming off their most embarrassing performance of the season, but Toronto expected something better than this.
"We’ve been on the road quite a bit this past month," said Marner. "But we can’t be a team that just keeps finding excuses. We had a couple back-to-backs – if we want to be a team that’s going to be great then we’ve got to start winning these."
That brings us back to McElhinney, who finds himself in the line of fire for these games. The 34-year-old knows the deal after bouncing from Calgary to Anaheim to Ottawa to Phoenix to Columbus to Toronto during his NHL career.
There’ve been some AHL detours along the way, too.
Facing the Blue Jackets was a homecoming of sorts, but he didn’t make time for sentiment.
"I’ve been too many places, unfortunately," said McElhinney. "That doesn’t make much of a difference anymore."
Coming out on top is all that matters now.
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