Some stories say you took a rowboat to school. True?
“The rowboat part is false. It always gets a little skewed. There are always parts of it that turn into mythology somehow, and I’m not really trying to be that guy. There was a small kicker motor, electricity, gas, the whole nine yards, so we weren’t doing too much manual labor.”
Ah, OK. But your parents, Deb and Tim, managed a resort on one of the thousands of islands in Lake of the Woods, which touches Minnesota, Manitoba and Ontario. You and your older sister, Sam, lived there until you were 7 before the family moved to Baudette, Minnesota, a town with a population of about 1,000. You did have to take a boat to a one-room schoolhouse on another island. Correct?
“Oh, yeah. Just not a rowboat. No, but it was really unique. It was actually, I think, one of the last one-room schoolhouses in the country -- [kindergarten through eighth grade], all the kids living on surrounding islands. You would be amazed at how many people our age were living next to us. Yeah, it’s just an odd situation and interesting.
“Obviously, when you’re young, that’s just your life, and it’s like, ‘Everybody else lives like this, too, don’t they?’ And then one day you wake up, and you realize that it’s completely bizarre.”
You played at Lake of the Woods High in Baudette and won the Frank Brimsek Award as the boys senior goalie of the year in Minnesota in 2011. Then you played two seasons for Omaha of the United States Hockey League and headed to Yale. How did that shape you?
“There’s a lot of people in the League from small towns, and everybody has their own unique story. I graduated with 30 kids. I do think in terms of my hockey life, it had a dramatic impact.
“One, I had the ability to be a big fish in a small pond, and I think that was really important in retrospect; two, I had really good coaches, very intelligent hockey minds, but I never had any professional goalie coaching really until I got to Yale. That really transformed my game because I just learned how to stop the puck.
“I think in 2024, you see some more specialization. They teach them how to play goalie first and then to be a competitor and a puck-stopper second, and I learned how to just compete, win games, and I think I still hold those at the top of my list for how I want to identify as a goalie.”
You went from a one-room schoolhouse to Yale, but your father, grandfather and great-grandfather each went to Yale before you. It’s not like you came out of nowhere, right?
“I still remember the first time I drove in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and I hit a stoplight. I was, like, 17 ½ years old. I’d had my driver’s license for a long time, but I was like, ‘This is intimidating.’ Sounds stupid. But yeah, my dad obviously went to Yale. He grew up in Wallingford, Connecticut, and he just had a bigger scope, you know? He always imparted on us, ‘Just go adventure. Go be interesting.’
“I think that that was integral, having someone to push you and kind of show you the other facets, and now that I’m past it, I feel happy and grateful that I got the values I did from that really small town, because I’ll always have those. Then I went to Yale, and obviously that was a completely different world politically, socially, financially. I learned a lot. My world got blown up even bigger there.
“This is a better way to put it: My sights were always set on achieving the most I could, being the best version of myself, and so I didn’t even think of limitations. I guess I grew up just thinking, ‘I can’t wait to see what else is going on.’ I feel very appreciative of my parents for that.”
Few leave Yale early to pursue pro sports, but you left after your junior year and joined Lehigh Valley of the AHL in 2016-17. You split time with Lehigh Valley and the Philadelphia Flyers from 2017-21, Chicago of the AHL and the Carolina Hurricanes in 2021-22, and Charlotte of the AHL and the Panthers last season. At what point did hockey seem like a viable career?
“I’m about 5 ½ credits [short of a degree in political science], and to be honest with you, when I left, it was just like, ‘I’ll try out the hockey thing.’ I didn’t anticipate playing professional hockey when I was in high school, even when I went to college. After my freshman year, I went to some development camps, and I was like, ‘All right, there might be something going on here.’ I took it more seriously.
“I had a pretty good rookie year in Lehigh, and then I got better that summer, and then I was like, ‘Oh, I’m knocking on the NHL door a little bit.’ And then I started to get a few games, and once you obviously start making money, then everything changes. It’s like, ‘Oh, I can sustain myself.’ And so, I guess, there was just never the pressure. I still have a burning desire to get my degree. It bothers me I don’t have it.”
Do you plan to finish it?
“Have to, and I would just like to make money after I’m done. It helps that too.”
On May 9, 2018, Lehigh Valley and Charlotte set the AHL record with 86:48 of overtime in the Calder Cup Playoffs. You made 94 saves in a 2-1 5OT win for Lehigh Valley, while Alex Nedeljkovic made 51 saves for Charlotte. How important was that experience?
“I’ve spent my whole career in the American League, so those are the experiences that I draw on. I don’t have many NHL experiences to draw on. It was awesome. It was an amazing experience. I have a plaque on my wall, the whole nine yards.
“Obviously, we won. ‘Ned’ was the other goalie, so I’m sure his side would be different. I feel bad for him, because it was a grueling experience. We were up 2-1 in the series going into that game, and that was the second half of a back-to-back. That was the second game in two nights. Obviously, if we would have lost, the series would have been 2-2. We went up 3-1. You could feel the series shift at that point, so emotionally, it was a big game.”
What did you draw on when you took over for Florida down the stretch last season?
“I’d just spent so much time in the American League being able to fine tune myself as a guy that plays a lot, not just mixing in here and there. I think that helped. [Sergei Bobrovsky] got hurt. At that point, there wasn’t anybody left, and so for me, I was just like, ‘They’ve got nobody else here, so it’s my show.’ I was just able to take that American League experience of ‘I’m the man, I’m the starter, whatever, blah, blah, blah’ and translate it.
“And that’s really what I needed, just a little runway, rather than ‘guy gets sick, got to come in for a game.’ That’s just a very difficult thing to do. I think in that way, it really helped me a lot. I actually had a stretch in the middle of the season last year when I had six or seven games, and I was a little up and down, but that time enhanced the comfort and the confidence I had, and then at the end of the year for me it was just playing, just being in the moment, and so it was good to just be comfortable. That comfort factor is so important.”
Similar situation in Detroit this season?
“Oh, yeah, for sure. I’m a big believer in the recipe. With anything in life, you’ve just got to find that repeatable process, and then once you find it, that’s crucial. I kind of had the confidence, like, ‘All right, I know I can do this. I know this is what works for me and what doesn’t.’ I think just my age too. If I let in whatever, ‘x’ amount of goals, I think that confidence in yourself too goes a long way.”
Speaking of recipes, aren’t you a good cook too?
“I’m all right. I’m adequate. To tie it all the way back, my mom, from scratch, made all the food at the restaurant. She’s not, like, super technical in the way that she learned, but she’s very proficient, can make anything, and that rubbed off on me.
“I really enjoy cooking. I’m not good at anything, but I’m just proficient in a lot of things. I don’t know. I just think being able to provide meals for yourself and cook for yourself is a very important life skill, and I take a lot of pride in it.”
Don’t Lake of the Woods and Baudette claim to be the walleye capital of the world? How do you prepare your walleye?
“The best way to eat walleye is fried with greasy Busch’s baked beans over the fire. I don’t want a baked walleye, something healthy. I’d rather save it for when I can fry it and eat it like a crazy animal.”
NHL.com staff writer Tracey Myers contributed to this report
