Hrudey on Korpisalo’s 85-Save Record: ‘I was cheering for him to break the 100-save mark’

(Photo credit: Hrudey/Bruce Bennett-Getty Images; Korpisalo/Bill Greenblatt-UPI)

On par with the rest of the world’s restoration to normality, the National Hockey League’s plan to return to action was met with reticence.

Regardless how anyone feels about the NHL’s return under the current circumstances, the teams involved in this unorthodox postseason have put on quite the showing, and that goes especially for the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets, who both contributed to arguably the most auspicious postseason start in NHL history.

In a rematch of their 2019 playoff series, the Lightning and Blue Jackets kicked off their series on Tuesday afternoon in Toronto, going back-and-forth without as much as giving their opponent an inch.

After each team scored a pair, the Lightning and Jackets entered overtime — and that’s when the excitement really began.

While there were many inspiring storylines attached to this game — including star defenseman Seth Jones logging over 60 minutes — it was the goaltending of Columbus’s Joonas Korpisalo that stood out.

After turning away 39 of 41 Lightning shots during regulation, the 25-year-old netminder made 12 more saves in overtime, and six more in a second extra session. But, as neither team could find the back of the net, the overtimes just kept on coming.

As this marathon match continued, new records were set. For Korpisalo, he was approaching the NHL’s single-game saves record of 73, set in 1987 by current Hockey Night in Canada analyst, Kelly Hrudey, whom I had the pleasure of speaking with about his record-setting night as well as Korpisalo’s seismic efforts this past week.

“I was doing the Calgary-Dallas game and had my eye on the Columbus-Tampa game,” Hrudey said. “I’m a big fan of [Korpisalo and Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy] but it was after the first overtime when Korpisalo, I believe, at that point had 51 saves and I thought, ‘Man, he looks dialed in,’ and didn’t look like there was a clean shot that was going to beat him.” 

Then a member of the New York Islanders, Hrudey and company entered the 1987 playoffs against the favourite Washington Capitals who had swept the Isles in the previous year’s opening round. After a 3-1 series deficit in ‘87, it appeared as though the Isles would fall victim to the Caps once again. After coming back to tie the series, though, the Islanders arrived in Landover, MD, for Game 7 of the Patrick Division semi-final hoping to avenge their ‘86 series loss to Washington by, well, 86ing the Capitals.

The task wouldn’t be easy, though. After all, Hrudey was facing a Capitals team with four future Hall-of-Famers: Mike Gartner, Rod Langway, Larry Murphy and Scott Stevens. The latter two would even later combine to win seven Stanley Cups.

Like Game 1 between the Bolts and Jackets on Tuesday, Game 7 between the Isles and Caps entered overtime at 2-2. Also like the former, the latter was known for its post-regulation marathon.

What has since been known as “The Easter Epic”, memories of the deciding game of the Islanders-Capitals series isn’t so much about Hrudey’s dominance but rather the conditions the former netminder, his teammates and his opponents had to endure to get through said marathon.

“That Easter Epic was strange,” Hrudey remembered. “We didn’t really truly understand nutrition like they do now, didn’t understand hydration like they do now or have the tools they do now. As for the intermissions, someone asked me a couple of days ago what we did because the Lightning and Blue Jackets, they had food and different things available. Back in ‘87, I don’t even think energy bars were invented and if they were, we certainly didn’t have them nor did we have the ability to bring bananas or pizza in or anything. So, it was a war to find a way to get the strength out of yourself and to play.”

As one overtime turned into two, then three and, finally, four, a dead-tired Hrudey remained at the top of his game, making one timely save after another before Pat Lafontaine took a seemingly aimless slapshot from the blueline that blinded Caps’ netminder Bob Mason, mercifully ending the game after 128:32, sending the Islanders to the second round.

As thrilling as the victory was, though, what’s fresh in Hrudey’s memory was the dire situation of dehydration following the game.

“I recall being so dehydrated that when the game finally did end and I started taking my gear off, when I got to my skates, I unlaced them and once I took my foot out of the boot, I was so dehydrated that my toes immediately curled under,” the Edmonton native admitted. “So, you could tell that I was near the end of being able to perform and fortunately for us, Pat Lafontaine ended the game.”

As the old adage goes, “Records were meant to be broken,” and Hrudey’s saves record was not immune.

What started out as one overtime eventually turned into five as the Bolts-Jackets affair was closing in on being one of the longest games ever, not just in recent memory. As for Korpisalo, he had earned the starting job in Columbus just last fall after Sergei Bobrovsky left for Florida in the off-season. If there was any doubt surrounding the Finnish netminder’s abilities as a starter, though, they were promptly erased on Tuesday.

“As this game was going on, it just appeared to me that there was no stopping Korpisalo and it was inevitable that he was going to get the record,” Hrudey noted. “And when he did, I had started to change my mindset. I was cheering for him to break the 100-save mark and that was true also for Vasilevskiy. I was thinking, ‘On a memorable night like this, wouldn’t it be fantastic that both of them, on the same night, broke my record?’”

Korpisalo would ultimately break Hrudey’s record as he proceeded to make an unfathomable 85 saves against the Lightning. In the end, though, the Bolts had spoiled Korpisalo’s outing as, at 10:27 of the fifth overtime, center Brayden Point unloaded a quick shot that beat the Columbus netminder to end the fourth-longest game in NHL history at 150:27.

“Still, Korpisalo finished with an astonishing 85 saves, which is a remarkable feat,” admitted Hrudey. “I guess the only concern I would have was that when I had my night 33 years ago, it was a great memory and a real positive, but to have a record like that and lose the game, it can’t be any fun reliving it years later. I hope he does but I can’t imagine he will.”

When Game 1 was said and done, Andrei Vasilevskiy wasn’t too far behind his adversary, making an exceptional 61 saves in the victory.

While they are a rarity, marathon playoff games nonetheless draw fans in, keeping them invested even if they don’t have a proverbial horse in the race. But, in the infrequent occurrences when playoff games do stretch to multiple overtime periods, the NHL is prepared — a lot more than they were decades earlier.

“What a change,” Hrudey emphasized of the NHL’s commitment to take care of its players during these instances. “The league definitely recognized this but the product on the ice needed to improve. So, what [the NHL] did was that they really decided to focus on the ice and the conditions that would have affected the ice in terms of humidity, building temperature and so on. I think it was around five years ago but they mandated it where the building temperatures had to be something like 58 F (just under 15 C), so it’s freezing in most buildings, whereas my time in the NHL, it was about fan comfort.

“It wasn’t about the quality of ice and so on, so when you look back from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s, you look in the stands and see, in warm places like L.A., you see people in T-shirts and shorts. In today’s NHL, it’s not like that. You’re freezing if you go to a game now, so the product, the ice is better. We were just so used to playing on lousy ice. It was a rarity when you’d go to a building and find that the ice was really great. Even the ice we played on growing up as kids, it was a lot better than the ice we played on in the NHL but it was just a fact and you wouldn’t really know it much because the players were so talented that they overcame those obstacles.”

Yet, while Hrudey is always quick to stress how important the fans are, he is happy to see the more recent generation of players getting taken care of a lot more during games with, what feels like, no end in sight.

“The NHL’s done a wonderful job,” Hrudey noted. “They make sure that people don’t get into the building too early and so on. It is a better product and [the league and teams] are very fortunate that they get to play on a sheet of ice much better than we did back then.”

While his 85-save effort in Game 1 was, or may have seemed, all for naught, Joonas Korpisalo nonetheless proved why an extraordinary level of resilience has transformed him into one of the league’s top rising talents in goal.

In the fifth and deciding game of their Stanley Cup qualifier against the Toronto Maple Leafs this past Sunday, Korpisalo was put back in goal after the Leafs made a late comeback in Game 4 against netminder Elvis Merzlikins. The Leafs had all the momentum in the world it seemed, especially since Korpisalo’s last appearance was in Game 3, being pulled after surrendering three goals on 15 shots. In response, the native of Pori, Finland, made 33 saves in the decider for his second shutout of the series, halting the Leafs’ momentum while catapulting the Blue Jackets into the playoffs. As for how he reacted to the Game 1 heart-breaker against Tampa Bay, Korpisalo made 37 saves in Game 2 to propel the Blue Jackets to victory.

In spite of their shocking sweep of the President’s Trophy-winning Lightning in the opening round of the 2019 playoffs, the Columbus Blue Jackets had entered the 2019-20 season with little chance to duplicate their success. After all, along with the aforementioned Bobrovsky, star forwards Artemi Panarin and Matt Duchene had left the club during the off-season via free agency.

When the NHL season was suspended in March due to COVID-19, the Jackets were a very respectable 33-22-15 with Korpisalo (and Merzlikins) minding the Columbus goal just fine.

If there was any doubt about his fate as a bona fide NHL netminder, Joonas Korpisalo snuffed it out, even more so after games where he may not have had the outcome he was hoping for.

As for Kelly Hrudey, watching Korpisalo’s — and Vasilevskiy’s — efforts on Tuesday served as a reminder of how wonderful and how exhilarating playoff hockey is, especially during these unprecedented times when a little joy goes even further.

His 85-save performance may have given a reason for hockey fans to take notice of his talent but it is the resolve of Joonas Korpisalo that will give fans a reason to remember his name.

While he and the Islanders would be eliminated in the second round of the 1987 playoffs, Kelly Hrudey’s efforts were nonetheless noteworthy, pushing a much-deeper Philadelphia Flyers squad to the brink of elimination in another seven-game series — a team who, that very spring, would push Wayne Gretzky and the juggernaut Edmonton Oilers to the brink of elimination themselves.

In spite of his team’s loss to the Flyers, though, Kelly Hrudey only got better.

Thanks to the guidance of a plethora of future Hall-of-Famers, including Denis Potvin, head coach Al Arbour and fellow goaltender, and mentor, Billy Smith, Hrudey took his talents to Los Angeles where he helped a rising Kings team, led by the aforementioned Gretzky, celebrate unprecedented success — just part of his successful playing career.

As he transitioned from a player to an analyst, Hrudey was just as effective, establishing a niche for himself as an expert of the game, examining it with nothing short of consummate professionalism and objectivity. And watching his record fall this past week was no exception.

There may have been a small part of Kelly Hrudey that was disappointed to see his saves record fall but there was a bigger part of the 15-year NHL veteran that was thrilled not only for Korpisalo but for the state of playoff hockey and even for the NHL, who faced a plethora of criticism when deciding to restart the current season.

Overall, even in spite of the circumstances with COVID-19, the Game 1 marathon between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning served as a stark reminder that regardless of what goes on in the outside world, playoff hockey can, and always will, play the pivotal role of being the ultimate escape for the sport’s loyal fanbase.

This may have been a springboard to his universal popularity or to premier status as an NHL goaltender but regardless, Joonas Korpisalo showed everyone what he was made of in Game 1 one save a time, 85 times over. That is not only a testament to how hungry a competitor he is but also a testament to how hungry the 25-year-old is as a human being — and that is something all of us, Kelly Hrudey included, can celebrate.

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