Opening night in the NHL is better in Montreal than any place else.
It has a different feel to it. The first game of any new season is always special, but when it’s Montreal, the birthplace of hockey atmosphere, where they had Pomp playing on defence beside Circumstance, it takes on a sporting life all its own.
Joseph Woll, who is neither a rookie nor a veteran, he isn’t sure what to call himself yet, in what is expected to be his first full Maple Leafs season. His last start at the Bell Centre came in a gold medal winning performance at the world junior tournament for Team USA.
He’s never started an NHL game in Montreal. Never had an opening night start before. Never been so much in the glare of the bright lights to start a season in a division in which Andrei Vasilevskiy, Sergei Bobrovsky and Jeremy Swayman — three of the four highest paid goalies in the world — are working just down the road.
Wednesday night is a new beginning for Woll, the goaltending student the Maple Leafs will start with, who is learning something new almost every day. On Tuesday, he probably learned not to announce himself as the starter before the coach confirms it publicly.
It’s one game at a time for Woll, one day at a time, one save at a time for a kid who isn’t really a kid anymore, a kid with immense talent and to date no staying power to last a complete season of pro hockey.
He is the great unknown of the division and of his team, the pitcher who hasn’t thrown enough innings, in competition with those owning Stanley Cup resumes: Bobrovsky, fresh off the Conn Smythe Trophy, has 396 NHL wins. Vasilevskiy in Tampa, has a Conn Smythe as well, along with 293 wins. Linus Ullmark, the new goalie in Ottawa, has 138 wins and a Vezina.
Woll has 21 wins with the Leafs. One more than Jeff Reese. One fewer than Glenn Healy.
There’s a long way to go catch Ed Belfour, Mike Palmateer, Curtis Joseph and Felix Potvin, the four truly great Toronto goaltenders of the past half century. But there’s something about Woll, his mysterious health aside, that seems believable.
He’s serious in a Jonathan Toews kind of way about his sport. The coaches knew that much about him when he was 16 years old. Goaltenders are supposed to be quirky, the way Belfour and Palmateer were quirky. There’s isn’t a lot of quirky in Woll. He’s the kid who sat beside you in class and studied more than you did for the final exam. He studies the way few goaltenders study. He works on his conditioning the way few goaltenders work on theirs.
All that hasn’t translated yet to a full season: The Leafs are hoping that the combination of Woll and Stanley Cup winner Anthony Stolarz will be good enough to compete in the best division in hockey and if one of those can’t be the guy, there is always hope that Matt Murray, the two-time Stanley Cup winner, still has some game left if need be.
Woll is looking forward to this trip to Montreal and opening night at the storied Bell Centre. This is where Carey Price played for parts of 15 seasons. Price was his guy, the goalie on Woll’s wall at home. When he was 16 years old and hoping he had a chance in hockey, Price was winning the Hart Trophy, the Vezina Trophy and almost any other trophy a goalie can win in hockey.
“He was a very good goalie,” said Woll, realizing as he spoke that words that there should always be some kind of separation between Toronto and Montreal when it comes to anything about hockey. This is Max Pacioretty’s first home opener in Montreal as a visitor, his first at the Bell Centre after parts of 10 seasons with Les Canadiens.
The emotion will be there Wednesday night for the new coach, Craig Berube, behind the Leafs bench, for the new winger, Pacioretty, going home to what isn’t home anymore, for the new goalie, Woll, looking for a place to begin to write the a new chapter of his own NHL story.
“We like our group,” said general manager Brad Treliving, who has turned over 40% of the opening night roster that he had a year ago. “I think we’ve got good goalies. In Joe’s case, he’s young, he hasn’t played that much. I think he’s a really good goalie. He doesn’t have the experience. You can’t hide from that.”
Until you’ve done it, you haven’t
That’s probably the largest question facing the Leafs as the new season begins, this game against Samuel Montembeault: Exactly who is Joseph Woll and how much will he be able to play as Toronto’s expected starting goalie?
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Woll has 22 career wins. Anthony Stolarz has 43. Combined they have two more wins career than Vesa Toskala had in his wonky time in Toronto.
“It’s a tandem that will see more net than they’ve had in the past,” said Berube. It’s not necessarily force feeding for either of them. In the words of Ken Dryden, former Habs goalie, former Leafs president, it’s time.
It all starts Wednesday at the Bell Centre, where the Canadiens are rebuilding, where the Leafs are supposed to be better, where opening night seems to end up in overtime almost every year. Opening night. The beginning of what could be possible for Joseph Woll.
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