Thanks to Kallgren, goaltending wasn't the problem...for one night

Making his first career start, Erik Kallgren was efficient and responsible and was rewarded with a shutout. So does that mean the Maple Leafs' goaltending woes are behind them?

Sporting former Leaf goalie Jonas Gustavsson’s No. 50, Erik Kallgren put up a shutout in his first NHL start.

There have been a good number of illustrious NHL careers that have grown out of the most innocuous and humble beginnings. After all, when Jordan Binnington posted a shutout in his first NHL start in January of 2019, who thought at the time that it would result in him and the St. Louis Blues going on a historic heater that would end in a Stanley Cup championship? When Ken Dryden stopped 34 of 35 shots against the Pittsburgh Penguins 51 years and one day ago, there could not have been many people predicting it would be the start of one of the most remarkable careers in NHL history and six Stanley Cups in nine years.

There are obviously some inherent dangers in comparing Erik Kallgren to the likes of Dryden and Binnington, but let’s do it anyway. Sports is supposed to be fun. Everything has to begin somewhere, and a 35-save shutout in your first full NHL game is as good a place as any to start. When Binnington threw up his zero against the Philadelphia Flyers three years ago, he was 25 years and 180 days old. When Kallgren backstopped the Leafs to a 4-0 win over the Dallas Stars Tuesday night, he was 25 years and 147 days old. So there’s a pretty neat parallel right there.

More importantly, though, for the first time in about a month, the Maple Leafs’ narrative after the game was not how badly their goaltenders played. In nine of their previous 12 starts, the Maple Leafs required a bare minimum of five goals to win the game. Tuesday night, all they needed was one. Kallgren is hardly in an exclusive club in putting up a shutout in his first start. Some have gone on to great things, others not so much. For example, the most recent Leaf goalie to do it was Garret Sparks in 2015-16 and look at how that turned out. “Do you remember the tears?” Maple Leafs media relations director Steve Keogh said of Sparks’ first game. “Well, (Kallgren) was crying on the inside.”

It definitely was on the inside because the kid reacted to all of it as though he had just won a beer league game. That matched his play in the crease, where he was efficient and responsible. It was a low-event game for the Stars partly because Kallgren made it that way. There were a few adventurous rebounds, but all in all, Kallgren played with the confidence of a veteran. And in some ways, he is. Last year, he was the backup for the regular season for Vaxjo in the Swedish League, then grabbed the net in the playoffs and led his team to the championship. There could be a similar opportunity to do something like that here because, the thing is, the Leafs don’t need the second coming of Dryden to contend for a Cup. They need a goalie who can give them exactly what Kallgren gave them in his first start. Nobody is anointing anyone anything at the moment, and nobody is getting ahead of themselves. But with two games before Monday’s trade deadline, Kallgren has earned another look as the team tries to find an answer to its goaltending woes.

“Let’s let the paint dry on this one a little bit,” said Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe, who picked up his 100th career victory. “No matter who is in goal for us, we have the ability and the responsibility to do the job in front of him and make life easier. I don’t know what the scoring chances or the expected goals looked like, but it’s as good as it’s been in a long time. The players were just really committed.”

To be sure, they played much better in front of Kallgren than they have in front of either Jack Campbell or Petr Mrazek of late. How many goals would either one of those guys let in that Kallgren stopped? It’s impossible to say, but the fact is that Kallgren took advantage of a team playing well in front of him and did not even come close to giving the type of back-breaking, soul-sucking goals of which both Campbell and Mrazek have been guilty of allowing. Keefe thought the toughest save Kallgren had on the night was the second one, off Michael Raffl at the 1:48 mark of the first period. From there on, Kallgren did not have a terribly difficult night, but part of the reason for that is because he didn’t make things difficult on himself. “It’s huge,” Keefe said of getting a performance like Kallgren gave the Leafs. “It’s a really hard game to play when you’re pulling the puck out of your net all the time. It becomes a real challenge because as players, you question yourself, maybe you made a mistake somewhere on the ice and you’re more nervous. We’ve been talking about it for so long. Our goaltenders have had some tough days…the players in front of him have a major and massive responsibility to do a good job, no matter who’s in the net. That’s what we’re capable of doing. We’re capable of rallying around the situation.”

For his part, Kallgren isn’t about to let his heart rate get out of control, which is a good thing. Not exactly as icy as Binnington, who said in the middle of his famous run, “Do I look nervous?” but pretty stoic nonetheless. “I’m going to take this very day-by-day,” Kallgren said. “I was called up less than a week ago and I’m just trying to enjoy this being up here and try to get better every day. I’m trying not to think too much here.”

But, hey, anything can happen, right? The aforementioned Dryden, when he was running the Maple Leafs as their team president two decades ago, would often say, “Imagine the possibilities.” And, by the way, his surname is pronounced SHAWL-gren. You might need to know that a little later this season.