MONTREAL – The playoffs, man. This is where dreams are realized and tough hockey players can instantly be reduced to a quivering puddle of emotions.
It was as if Matt Fraser was standing on smoldering coals while detailing his unplanned journey from Providence to the Bell Centre this week. Of course, he had plenty of reason to bounce around after scoring the overtime winner in his Stanley Cup playoff debut.
"I hardly slept today and I’m sure I’ll hardly sleep tonight," Fraser said after batting a bouncing puck behind Carey Price. How far he’d come in a little more than 24 hours. "Yesterday I was sitting at Chipotle eating lunch and wondering what I was going to do for the day."
Now the 23-year-old is smack dab in the middle of a white-hot playoff series featuring hockey’s oldest rivals. Fraser’s impact on the Canadiens-Bruins matchup may not have been expected, but this is otherwise playing out just how we thought it would. Tied 2-2, every game close, last goal wins.
Fraser’s goal came 1:19 into overtime and was the only one scored on a nervy night here. The puck had taken a crazy bounce off the end boards and skipped out to side of the net. Fraser and Douglas Murray seemed to be the only two guys on the ice who kept track of it and the glacial Habs defenceman wasn’t winning this race.
Boston was in search of a spark when it called up the 23-year-old from Red Deer, Alta., on Wednesday. Fraser had just performed well in the Providence Bruins five-game series victory over Springfield. Who knew if he would be ready for this?
Fraser had played two previous exhibition games at the Bell Centre and knew the atmosphere would be mind-bending. Then he stood through player introductions and Ginette Reno’s spine-tingling rendition of "O Canada" and had his expectations obliterated. Watching those pre-game festivities from home, former NHLer Darcy Tucker tweeted that your "heart feels like it’s coming out of your chest when you step on the ice" in Montreal.
Powerful stuff.
Bruins coach Claude Julien wanted to maximize his chance of success and placed him on a line with Carl Soderberg and Loui Eriksson. They would spend roughly 60 percent of the night facing the Habs third defensive pairing of Murray and Mike Weaver. If the devil is in the details, that helped make the difference in the game.
So emotional was the experience for Fraser that he confessed to being nervous every time the puck was in the Bruins zone. With Price and Tuukka Rask both on top of their games, and so much on the line, the task was tough. The last thing the new guy wanted to do was make a mistake.
"It’s hard not to (be nervous)," Julien said. "Sitting in this building – you hear so much about it growing up and you’ve seen it so many times – it’s no doubt it was probably a little nerve-wracking for him. But to me it didn’t show on the ice."
This was yet another reminder that the iron-willed Bruins won’t bend. While there may be something embedded in this organization’s DNA about needing to test their boundaries before playing their best, this much we know: They won’t panic when they get behind. In a series or a game.
Julien had thrown all of his lines in the blender for the morning skate before Game 4, but there was never much danger of him making sweeping changes. The only alteration among the forwards was playing Fraser instead of Jordan Caron.
Tension ran through this game like the super beam holding together the Champlain bridge. There was a Soderberg crossbar and a Reilly Smith post and a Brian Gionta breakaway and a handful of other Grade A scoring chances.
For long stretches, the run of play would go on without any hint that a goal would ever come. The Bruins scrum that produced Fraser’s winner saw three shots directed towards Price. There was never any other play like it at the other end of the ice.
"We’ve got to try to make life a little more difficult on Rask in front of the net," observed Habs defenceman Josh Gorges. "If we want to score on him it’s got to be hard on him."
Fraser is yet another component of last summer’s bold Tyler Seguin deal with Dallas. He, Eriksson and Reilly Smith are all now playing in this series. Originally an undrafted signing by the Stars, he’s been a productive scorer at the AHL level and has four goals in 28 appearances as an NHLer.
The one he scored on Thursday night will be imprinted in his memory forever. No less of an authority than Jarome Iginla said he couldn’t think of a cooler story for a player appearing in his first playoff game.
Standing with half of his equipment still on and a "Hockey Night in Canada" towel around his neck and everything running through his mind, Fraser was literally trembling with excitement.
"Words can’t even describe that feeling," he said. "I just watched the replay of it and I don’t even want to begin to try to explain that because it’s something I wish that every kid could feel."
Now it’s Habs-Bruins in a best-of-three. There’s a lot of hockey still to be played and the chance for more memories to be made.