PITTSBURGH – Coming to the Stanley Cup final and bumping into someone with deep connections to the Toronto Maple Leafs is just plain weird.
That’s not only a commentary on the longest championship drought in the sport, but also the fact that it’s been five years since a player of any consequence in Toronto went on to lift the trophy somewhere else – not since Tomas Kaberle did it with the Boston Bruins in 2011.
The streak, of sorts, will end here in the coming week or two when either Phil Kessel’s Pittsburgh Penguins or James Reimer’s San Jose Sharks finish off a best-of-seven series that starts Monday night.
Watching Kessel streak down the wing in Pittsburgh black and gold has become a familiar sight by now, with nearly 11 months having passed since his trade and the spotlight having been trained on him throughout these playoffs.
As for Reimer? Well that’s different.
He was acquired on Feb. 27, just ahead of the trade deadline, and has seen limited action while backing up Martin Jones. He’s made nine appearances in total for the Sharks – one in relief during the Western Conference final – after playing 214 career games for Toronto.
Reimer was once the longest-tenured member of the Maple Leafs and a wildly popular player for the organization. With unrestricted free agency looming on July 1, he’s essentially of no-fixed address right now – renting an apartment in San Jose and recently unloading his place in Toronto.
“It’s sold,” Reimer said Sunday. “It was a really good market for our house, so we figured we’d capitalize.”
Once the initial shock of the trade wore off, he’s had no trouble seeing the bright side of his situation. It quickly became clear that the Sharks were a team capable of the kind of playoff run that has brought them to this point – and the change in lifestyle has been embraced by he and wife April.
Other than leaving some friends behind, they haven’t looked back.
“On the superficial and shallow side of it, I mean you look at the weather, you look at the area – it’s beautiful,” Reimer said of San Jose. “Who wouldn’t want to live there? But yeah, it’s tough when you leave a place where you’ve been for darn near five, six, seven years. A lot of friends, you’ve got a great community, that part makes it tough.”
Even though this has been the spring of the rotating goalie around the NHL, Reimer isn’t holding his breath at the outset of the Cup final. He says we’re at the point where “making a change for the sake of a change becomes less and less likely.”
Besides, he’s a great teammate with an interest in seeing things go well for the Sharks and if they’re rolling with Jones, that’s probably a good sign.
Reimer had a strong regular season with a career-best 48 appearances and solid .922 save percentage. There were some talks on a possible extension with the Leafs before he was eventually dealt for a meagre return – although the 2018 fourth-round pick Toronto received in the deal has since been upgraded to a third-rounder because San Jose made the final.
In all likelihood, the 28-year-old will hit the open market this summer and is arguably the top goaltending option available. Calgary, Carolina and, yes, Toronto are among those most in need at the position.
While Reimer acknowledges wondering about what the future holds, it isn’t the cause of too much stress for him.
“If it’s meant to be it’s meant to be,” he said. “It’s just like everything in life; I mean faith plays a big part for me. So I trust that there’s a plan out there.”
Right now he’s trying to stay in the moment – and stay ready in case the moment calls for him to play.
Whether that happens or not, a guy who grew up 90 minutes north of Winnipeg in tiny Morweena, Man., has a chance to add another chapter to his incredible story by potentially bringing the Stanley Cup home this summer.
Reimer is reasonably certain the town – population 150 – has never played host to it before. And he’s dreamed about what it might be like to see it there.
“You let yourself do it for 30 seconds,” said Reimer. “I think it’s so special in that sense that you don’t even really want to think about it. You’ve thought about it enough throughout your whole life that now that it’s close you just kind of want to get to down to business and make sure you do what you need to do.”
Surreal, all of it.