DENVER — The Stanley Cup weighs 35 pounds, but it’s not the weight of it that can crush you.
If you play in the National Hockey League and get so near it that you can see your reflection against the shiny names of the immortals, but never win it, that will weigh on you forever.
Scott Wedgewood not only saw his reflection but held the Stanley Cup, the last player to hoist it aloft triumphantly, after the Tampa Bay Lightning won it during the pandemic bubble in Edmonton in the surreal summer of 2020.
Wedgewood was the practice goalie called up from the minors and brought into the bubble so Lightning shooters like Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos would have someone to pelt at the end of Tampa practices.
“Mathieu Joseph handed it to me, and then there was no one left to hand it to,” Wedgewood said Thursday of the post-Cup procession in Edmonton. “Stamkos said, ‘You want to hand it to Coop?’ I joked to a buddy, ‘I introduced myself to Jon Cooper, then handed him the Stanley Cup.’”
But the goalie from Brantford, Ont., didn’t “win it.” Wedgewood never played an NHL game, during the playoffs or regular season, so his name is not engraved with other Lightning players on the Stanley Cup.
“But that kind of lit a new fire,” Wedgewood, a career backup until this season, said. “And then it was, like, ‘Okay, I got to lift the Cup, but my name’s not on it. So now let’s get my name on it.’ I wouldn’t say the fire was out. But I would say that before that bubble, it was probably at its lowest.”
That he is still desperate at age 33 to get his name on the trophy is not surprising. But six years ago, after playing just 24 NHL games in his first eight seasons of professional hockey, that Wedgewood’s opportunity this spring is coming as the starting goalie on the Stanley Cup-favourite Colorado Avalanche would have been unimaginable to anyone but him.
Wedgewood has been in the NHL since 2020, albeit with five different teams. But until this season, he had not played more than 32 games in any campaign. Even now, as he leads the Avalanche into Game 3 of its second-round series, 6-0 in the playoffs, Wedgewood has logged only 199 regular-season games in his career.
But this season he outperformed teammate and projected starter Mackenzie Blackwood — the two Woods, old teammates from the start of their careers in the New Jersey Devils’ system, constitute the “The Lumberyard” in Denver — to get 43 starts and head coach Jared Bednar’s trust to open the playoffs behind a team that includes Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Devon Toews and Martin Necas.
Had he 53 starts, Wedgewood might have been a Vezina Trophy finalist. He went 31-6-6 with a .921 save rate and was among NHL leaders in advanced stats like goals-saved-above-average (second in the NHL to Washington’s Logan Thompson, according to Evolving Hockey).
Even after allowing six goals in the Avalanche’s outrageous 9-6 win in Game 1 against the Wild on Sunday, Wedgewood’s playoff save percentage is .923.
“It’s been what you dream of,” the famously engaging and amiable veteran told Sportsnet on the morning of his team’s 5-2 win in Game 2 on Tuesday. “I was very happy at times with just getting in the league, right? It was such a long struggle to just get a job.
“When I got to Dallas, I’ve talked about being behind (Jake) Oettinger. Him being a little bit younger and just starting his career, he kind of feels like a guy’s coming (for him) and I’m like, ‘Listen, I just want a job.’ Like, I’m very happy playing 25 or 30 games behind him and helping any way I can. I always felt I was underused, but I was just happy to be in the NHL ‚ like every kid would have been, right?
“But still with that happiness, I was driving to play better and play more and get an opportunity and run with it. I think I’ve really grown into my game plan. My mentality around the whole thing has always been humble and grounded; that’s helped. But I think you always want to be a part of the decision, which is always tough in the playoffs. You want to help. You always want to be, you know, doing something. So now that I have the chance to do something about it, I’m definitely trying to take advantage of it and really enjoy it.”
Wedgewood’s three seasons in Dallas, which included 32 games in 2023-24, established him as a reliable NHL backup and earned him a two-year contract with the Nashville Predators.
But on Nov. 30 of his first season in Tennessee, with the Avalanche overhauling their goaltending position, Colorado acquired him for prospect Justus Annunen. Nine days later, Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland made a bigger deal, getting Blackwood from San Jose in a multi-player trade that included former Avalanche starter Alex Georgiev.
Wedgewood, then in his 30s and never a starter, just continued to progress.
But the turning point were those two months as the Lightning’s playoff practice player under goaltending coach Frantz Jean, who helped Wedgewood focus and refine his playing style.
“I remember that year in Syracuse with COVID, it was probably one of those times where I was kind of unsure (about my NHL future),” Wedgewood said. “I’d been up and down, and then another two years in the American League. It was just kind of like, you know, if this doesn’t pan out, am I an American League goalie for the rest of my life? Am I going overseas? Those conversations and thoughts have crept in at times, and that was probably my lowest point, just mentally. And then the bubble happened, and I spent 70 days with Tampa and Frantz Jean, the goalie coach there, just grinding out a new game plan and really just thriving behind that Stanley Cup run.
“I love to be coached and taught. But I think after everything I kind of came through, you know, I feel like now if I end up on a different team at any point, this (style) is the new game plan that I want to play with. Obviously, it helps when you’re on a really good team. Anyone can admit that.”
Sure, it helps. But the Avalanche believe enough in Wedgewood that in November, with him eligible for unrestricted free agency in July, they re-signed him for another year at $2.5 million – $1 million more than he had made in any of his 13 seasons in pro hockey.
He feels like he is just getting started.
Don’t laugh: former Minnesota Wild goalie Dwayne Roloson did not become an NHL starter until his 30s and then played another 500 games before retiring at age 42 in 2012.
“It’s a little bit of the same story, right?” Wedgewood said. “I haven’t played 200 NHL games yet. You think of a couple of seasons (for skaters), that’s 164 games by the end of their second season. And I haven’t played 200 yet. And I’m 33. I think it comes with time in the net, experience, working on different things. I had numerous different goalie coaches and guys that want you to play different ways.
“But the game plan that I have set now, I think with the experience of being able to test it and run through it 44 games (this season) instead of 18 or 22 times, you’re going to get more consistent and just trust yourself more. And that’s kind of what this year’s been about.
“I don’t think I ever changed the mentality of wanting to be the best I could be. But I think I was a realist. From the outside looking in, it shouldn’t be me (starting), just based on my career. But I have been working for it and getting the coaches behind me and the team behind me and getting this chance. And I’ll do everything I can to make it worth their while.”
And get more than his hands on the Stanley Cup.