Most Boston Bruins fans probably know James Reimer best for his role in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ epic Game 7 collapse in the 2013 Eastern Conference quarterfinals.
Reimer had the unfortunate distinction of being in net as the Bruins scored twice in the final 82 seconds of regulation and again in overtime to hand Toronto a 4-3 loss from which it has yet to recover.
The stakes weren’t nearly as high Tuesday night when Reimer faced the B’s for the first time as a member of the San Jose Sharks, but the results were markedly different.
With the Sharks holding a one-goal lead with less than four minutes remaining in the third period, the ex-Leafs goaltender foiled a David Krejci breakaway bid. Then, with less than a second left on the clock, he snatched a point-blank wrist shot by Torey Krug out of the air to secure the  3-2 San Jose win.
“It’s tough,” winger Loui Eriksson, who scored one of the Bruins’ goals in the loss, told reporters, as aired on “Bruins Overtime LIVE.” “I thought we had some really good scoring chances to tie it up there, especially in the end, and he made some big saves for them.”
The Maple Leafs traded Reimer to the Sharks on Feb. 27. Since then, the 28-year-old has posted a .937 save percentage and 1.37 goals against average in three starts, winning two. He is expected back up Martin Jones as the Sharks head into the postseason.
Some additional notes from Tuesday night:
— The loss to the Sharks kicked off a three-game West Coast swing for the Bruins, and their road gets no easier from here.
Boston now will trek down to SoCal, where they’ll visit the Anaheim Ducks on Friday and the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday. Those teams have posted identical 7-2-1 records in their last 10 games, and both demolished the Bruins at TD Garden earlier this season, winning one game apiece by a combined score of 15-4.
Though he surely would have preferred to start this treacherous trip by picking up two points, Bruins coach Claude Julien saw plenty of positives to take away from his team’s stumble in San Jose.
“I don’t think there’s a negative impact,” Julien said in a postgame interview with NESN’s Jack Edwards and Andy Brickley. “I think it was a hard-fought game, and we were one goal short. It could have gone either way, I think, at times. But we worked hard, we played with them, we went head to head. It was just one of those games, and hopefully we can take that into the next game here in Anaheim — a big team, as well. The next two games are going to be big games for us — teams that play heavy games. And we’ve just got to be a little bit better.”
The Bruins also will visit the New York Rangers next Thursday before returning home and will play seven of their next eight games on the road.
—Â It was two years ago last week that former Bruins forward Rich Peverley suffered a cardiac incident and collapsed on the Dallas Stars’ bench during a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Peverley later underwent heart surgery and subsequently retired from the NHL, ending a career that included 442 games and one Stanley Cup, won with Boston in 2011.
ESPN.com’s Scott Burnside on Tuesday published a lengthy feature on Peverley, who now works in the Stars’ player development department and aims to promote awareness for heart-related issues through his charity, Pevs Protects.
“For me it’s like — I hate to say this — but it’s like it never really happened,” the 33-year-old, who was dealt from Boston to Dallas in the 2013 trade headlined by Tyler Seguin and Loui Eriksson, told Burnside. “I had to deal with the emotions and everything, the aftermath. But, you know, I didn’t deal with the fact that I could have died in front of people.”
Read the full ESPN.com piece here.
Thumbnail photo via John Hefti/USA TODAY Sports Images
