Jeremy Swayman
Let’s play the Alaska/NHL birthday game!
Anchorage’s Jeremy Swayman crushed on his 23rd birthday earlier this week, stifling 24 shots at Buffalo to backstop the Boston Bruins to a 5-1 victory.
Very cool.
But you know what’s even cooler? Playing a team that actually gives you some goal support on your birthday.
Swayman’s win Wednesday prompted us to see how he’s done on his birthday previously. Turns out the second-year NHL masked man twice played on his birthday in his three college seasons at Maine, where his teammates celebrated his big day by furnished him exactly – wait for it – zero goals in those two games. Seriously – bagels for the birthday boy. As a freshman in 2017, Swayman stopped 34 of 36 shots at Providence but got tagged with a 3-0 loss (empty-netter). As a sophomore in 2018, Swayman stopped 17 of 19 shots in a 2-0 loss to Quinnipiac.
So, to recap: The three most recent times Swayman has played on his birthday, he has delivered a combined 1.69 goals-against average and .938 save percentage. All that got him was a 1-2-0 ledger.
Anyhow, Swayman’s birthday exploits got us to thinking, huh, wonder how some other Alaska notables have fared on their big days. (Alas, there is not a website called HowAlaskaHockeyBirthdayBoysDid.com – so, swan dive into the rabbit hole.)
Scott Gomez
You will be shocked, shocked I promise you, to find out Alaska’s most prolific birthday boy was Scotty Gomez of Anchorage. Stunner, eh? Knocked me over with a ball of wadded-up, used stick tape. Alaska’s best hockey player put up 3-7—10 totals in 10 career NHL games on Dec. 23 for a point-per-game average of 1.0, which exceeded his career average per game of .70.
Our man Nate Thompson of Anchorage, the Philadelphia Flyers center who with Swayman comprises Alaska’s NHL contingent these days, has played four NHL games on his birthday. No points. But rest assured he has won a ton of face-offs. Also, rest assured I am not looking that up on the NHL’s website, which would be cutting-edge, state-of-the-art if it were 2006. Thompson’s birthday is Oct. 5 – many NHL seasons have started shortly after that date during Thompson’s career.
Brandon Dubinsky of Anchorage, whose 823 NHL games played puts him No. 3 on the Alaska list behind Gomez (1,079) and Thompson (830), played just one NHL game on his birthday. That’s largely because the center’s birthday is April 29, which is usually the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Dubinsky played for the Rangers and Blue Jackets from 2006-2019. Connect the dots.
Joey Crabb
Winger Joey Crabb of Anchorage (179 NHL games) played once on his April 3 birthday, notching an assist for Toronto on his 29th birthday.
Zero NHL birthday games for defenseman Matt Carle of Anchorage is his long NHL career (730 games). Makes sense – his birthday is Sept. 25, which is pretty much training-camp time each fall.
Ty Conklin of Anchorage is the most prolific NHL goaltender in Alaska history (216 NHL appearances), but he never played an NHL game on his March 30 birthday. Ditto for winger/enforcer Scott Parker of Eagle River, aka The Sherriff, in his 308 NHL games. Not once when someone asked him what he did on Jan. 29 could he answer, “The usual – repeatedly punched a guy in the head, sat in a box for five minutes and iced my knuckles.”
Winger Tim Wallace of Anchorage (101 NHL games) has an Aug. 6 birthday, so that’s a non-starter. Center Brian Swanson of Eagle River (70 NHL games) never played in the world’s best league on his March 24 birthday.
We will conclude with active goaltender Pheonix Copley of North Pole (29 NHL games). He hasn’t played in the big show on his Jan. 18 birthday, but he has logged two American Hockey League games, going 2-0-0 with a 2.98 goals-against average and .885 save percentage.
But get a load of what Copley copped at Michigan Tech. As a freshman in 2013, he stopped 25 shots in a 4-0 win over Bemidji State on Jan. 18, his 21st birthday. That was notable, but particularly notable in a wider context. That shutout was Copley’s third in a five-game stretch, and the other two both came in the 2012 Great Lakes Invitational, where he blanked Michigan and Western Michigan back-to-back (70 shots, 70 saves) and was voted the tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
We’ll wrap this with our frequent reminder that hockey is a tiny world. You know who else was MVP at the Great Lakes Invitational? Guy by the name of Joey Crabb from Anchorage, who turned the trick for Colorado College in 2005.