Reimer Finishes Whirlwind 2011 Home in Winnipeg at LinesMaker

Reimer Finishes Whirlwind 2011 Home in Winnipeg

WINNIPEG — Tend­ing goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs can be a lonely, criticism-filled exis­tence when the fabled club has man­aged only two wins in its last seven games.

But Leafs net­min­der James Reimer can expect to see at least a few friendly faces back in his home province of Man­i­toba when he meets his fam­ily for din­ner on Fri­day night before he heads back to the team hotel to rest up for the Leafs’ Sat­ur­day night clash with the Win­nipeg Jets at the MTS Cen­tre. Reimer has pur­chased 15 tick­ets to the game for fam­ily and friends, and they will see him start in net for the Leafs in his Win­nipeg debut as an NHL goaltender.

The affa­ble 23-year-old grew up in Mor­weena, Man., a small com­mu­nity approx­i­mately 90 min­utes north of Win­nipeg. He has played in Win­nipeg as a Leafs’ Amer­i­can League farm­hand with the Toronto Mar­lies. But being on the NHL stage now means that Reimer and the Leafs are try­ing to scrounge addi­tional tick­ets for the game, though the Leafs-Jets New Year’s Eve game is one of the most elu­sive tick­ets in Win­nipeg this season.

“Win­nipeg, Man­i­toba is home,” Reimer said after the Leafs con­ducted an after­noon prac­tice on Fri­day. “I’ve always enjoyed com­ing back here when I was in the AHL. It’s always a lot of fun and a great atmos­phere. I can’t imag­ine what the atmos­phere is going to be like [Sat­ur­day] night.”

Whether Manitoba’s friendly side will endure when the Leafs meet the Jets remains to be seen. Win­nipeg fans have devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for hos­tile greet­ings toward vis­it­ing goal­tenders at the MTS Cen­tre. Reimer’s cheer­ful demeanor and provin­cial roots may test those unwel­com­ing ten­den­cies, however.

Reimer’s return to Man­i­toba comes at a dif­fi­cult time for the Leafs, who have 41 points and occupy eighth place in the East­ern Con­fer­ence in a three-way tie with the seventh-place Jets and sixth-place New Jer­sey Dev­ils. The Leafs have dropped two con­sec­u­tive games on their cur­rent four-game trip. Thurs­day night’s loss to the Hur­ri­canes saw the Leafs sur­ren­der a 3–1 lead in the third period and lose 4–3 in over­time to Car­olina team that sits in 14th place in the East­ern Con­fer­ence and is scram­bling to sal­vage its season.

After a sto­ry­book NHL rookie sea­son, Reimer’s sec­ond NHL cam­paign has been a bit more bumpy. In an injury-plagued cam­paign so far, Reimer has gone 7–3-4 in 16 games with the Leafs, com­pil­ing a 3.00 goals-against aver­age and .899 save per­cent­age in a pla­toon with Jonas Gustavsson.

But since return­ing this month from an injury he sus­tained in Octo­ber, Reimer has strug­gled. In his 10 games in Decem­ber, he allowed three or more goals seven times. The Florida Pan­thers knocked him out of Tuesday’s loss, beat­ing him three times on eight shots. Thurs­day did not pro­vide Reimer the sort of bounce-back that he and coach Ron Wil­son had hoped for, either.

“You use it as moti­va­tion,” Reimer said of his recent struggles.

While Leafs coach Ron Wil­son could have opted to start Gus­tavs­son, given Reimer’s sub­par play of late, Wil­son believes that start­ing Reimer in Win­nipeg might help to jump­start his play and believes that it would not be fair to deny his goal­tender a start in front of fam­ily and friends.

“He’s got a rea­son to have his best game,” Wil­son explained of his decision.

But Reimer does not expect Wil­son to pam­per him dur­ing dif­fi­cult times.

“He has every right to pump my tires or deflate them,” Reimer said of his coach, “what­ever he feels is necessary.”

Reimer’s start in Win­nipeg will also come one day before the one-year anniver­sary of his first NHL start. In that game he held the Ottawa Sen­a­tors to one goal in kick­ing off his NHL career with four wins in his first five starts. Reimer went on to his estab­lish him­self as an NHL goal­tender, then earned a ros­ter spot with Team Canada in the 2011 World Hockey Cham­pi­onship. He capped his sea­son by sign­ing a new three-year con­tract with the Leafs.

“Whirl­wind,” Reimer replied when asked how he would term his 2011 cal­en­dar year. “It has been a pretty excit­ing year. I can’t believe all that has taken place in one year. It has been an inter­est­ing year. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how to describe it.”

Reimer will not be able to revive his sea­son in one night, but a key meet­ing with the Jets on the stage that Hockey Night in Canada pro­vides should add another mem­ory to his NHL collection.

“I used to be one of them in the stands,” Reimer said of Win­nipeg hockey fans. “It’s a great hockey city. They’re well-educated. They love the game. It’s fun to come back here and play. It’s great to have fam­ily here. They’re obvi­ously all stoked for the new Jets, and they love the team.”

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