On a date last season he cannot recall in a rink he cannot recollect against an opponent lost to his memory, Chris Wagner remembers exactly how he felt as he paced before puck drop.
Per team tradition, Wagner is among the first to exit the dressing room. He enters the tunnel to await the rest of his teammates as they file toward the ice.
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That day, as Wagner peeked out into an empty building, his mind started to sprint.
“Honestly, I’m freaking out,” Wagner recalled this week. “There’s nobody in the stands. I’m standing there and I’m like, ‘Wow, I’ve got bad anxiety right now.'”
Brandon Carlo and Kevan Miller were standing next to Wagner. Neither noticed anything out of the ordinary.
During a subsequent chapel group, Wagner shared this story with the two defensemen. Miller was first to voice his surprise.
Then Miller had an admission. He was not feeling good either. Carlo spoke up as well.
“I’m struggling too,” Carlo said.
Wagner was relieved. He was not alone.
The next time the three teammates huddled in a tunnel pregame, they did what good friends with a common experience regularly do. They joked. And felt better.
Opening up
Wagner has fought for everything in hockey. Every NHL team passed him over during the Walpole native’s first year of draft eligibility. He did not receive a college offer until he was 18 years old.
He missed the 2019 Stanley Cup Final because he broke his right ulna blocking a Justin Faulk shot in the Eastern Conference final. He led the Bruins in hits in 2018-19 (247) and 2019-20 (192). Job requirements include defensive-zone starts, penalty killing and confrontational shifts against first-liners.
Chris Wagner gets in front of a Zdeno Chara shot. (Geoff Burke / USA Today)In that way, the 6-foot, 197-pound right wing defines what it means to be a rugged hockey player. It has not always meant frank emotional discussion.
COVID-19 restrictions, however, left Wagner in search of guidance. In the pandemic’s early days, he went several months without seeing his father, Paul, or his mother, Cindy. Last season, he lived alone.
It might have been one thing had 2020-21 gone well for Wagner on the ice. It did not.
He scored two goals and three assists in 41 games. He was a healthy scratch 10 times. Because of the compressed schedule, repeated poor performances weighed on Wagner even more than usual. Vacant rinks did not help.
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“You just keep thinking more and more. With the quiet,” Wagner said.
All of this made for lonely nights, at home or in his hotel room. Wagner read the Bible. He played Xbox, trading jokes with friends and teammates over his headset.
Try as he might, Wagner could not keep his anxiety away. At times, he did not sleep well. He lost between five to 10 pounds over the season.
Wagner turned to his usual resources: team sports psychologist Dr. Stephen Durant and team chaplain Dave Ripper. He talked to his father, who also experienced anxiety as a young man.
But what gave him the most comfort was sharing his feelings with teammates. They were the ones who lived Wagner’s experiences: daily testing, playing in empty arenas, forbidden from grabbing a coffee on the road. It wasn’t natural for Wagner to share.
“We all assumed we were all fine. We weren’t,” Wagner said. “So once we started talking about it, it brought our group closer together. You’re able to open up to guys and say, ‘Man, I feel weird today.’ Or, ‘I’m struggling with this.'”
Wagner notes his experience is neither unique nor dire. He did not need medication to treat his anxiety. Wagner relates the challenges that his good friend Mike Shaw, who owns Loco Taqueria in South Boston, has had to face as a restaurateur.
But Wagner acknowledged his vulnerability, which is not easy for a pro athlete. He learned that being open is critical to feeling better.
Turning around
On March 25, the Bruins lost to the Islanders at home in overtime, 4-3. But it was the start of better days for Wagner. It was the first time fans were allowed in TD Garden.
The next checkpoint was the April 12 trade deadline. Wagner and the rest of his teammates were locked in. Taylor Hall, Mike Reilly and Curtis Lazar were on board. The playoffs were coming.
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By the second round, restrictions had eased in Boston. On May 29, 17,400 fans jammed into the Garden to watch the Bruins win Game 1, 5-2. Wagner had three shots and a team-high six hits.
“I’ll never forget that first game back when it was full,” Wagner said. “That was an absolute blast. It felt good. It felt normal again.”
It was a good summer for Wagner. He and his wife, Kate, were married in Falmouth.
“Probably the most anxiety I had was standing at the altar,” Wagner joked, “waiting for Kate to come.”
Wagner is dealing with a different kind of stress now. This one is familiar.
Chris Wagner (Charles LeClaire / USA Today)“I’ve never felt comfortable going into a camp,” Wagner said. “This is my 10th year pro, which is pretty crazy. I’ve been on an NHL roster for 400-plus games. Still, I don’t think any day I ever walk into a rink and think, ‘Oh yeah, my job’s set.’ I look at it as another competitive camp where I’ve got to work hard, outcompete and outplay guys. Nothing new.”
Fighting for a job
Wagner is starting the second season of a three-year, $4.05 million contract. He has 358 games of NHL experience. None of this guarantees he will be wearing his No. 14 jersey in the Oct. 16 season opener.
Wagner is locked in a dogfight with Lazar for the job at No. 4 right wing. Karson Kuhlman could muscle his way into the mix. So far, Lazar has gotten most of the shifts alongside Trent Frederic and Tomas Nosek, the other likely fourth-liners.
“They all bring something a little different,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said of his right wings. “So it might be a platoon system early on until we figure out, ‘OK, what’s the best fit?’ But at the end of the day, I think they look around and realize, ‘Hey, I’ve just got to outplay those guys.’ I hope Chris Wagner or Lazar’s not thinking, ‘I’ve got to outplay (David Pastrnak) today.’ That’s not the case. They have to do what they do best. Usually, for those guys, they’re penalty killers. They’re defensive-minded forwards that have got to keep the puck out of their net or do their best to do that. Little bit of energy, physicality.”
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Wagner joined his hometown team in 2018-19. That season, he competed with Joakim Nordstrom, Sean Kuraly and Noel Acciari for fourth-line responsibility. He scored a career-high 12 goals in 76 games.
His friends and ex-linemates are gone. Acciari, Wagner’s former youth hockey teammate with the South Shore Kings, signed with Florida in 2019. Nordstrom left for Calgary a year later. Kuraly was the latest to say goodbye, returning home to the Blue Jackets this summer.
“I miss Noel, just as a guy,” Wagner said. “Sean, I wouldn’t want him to read that I miss him. But he knows. We’ve talked the last couple days. We’ll see each other every once in a while. It’s probably one of those relationships that will go on beyond being on the same team.”
Wagner is comfortable again. This is his first training camp as a married man. He enjoys the postgame card games on the plane that were forbidden all last season. It makes him happy to see his friends’ smiles that are no longer hidden behind masks. He likes socializing outside the rink with teammates who live in his Seaport neighborhood.
Wagner is still unsettled because of camp, his identity as a fourth-liner and the job insecurity that comes with the position. By now, he is at peace with that.
(Top photo: Len Redkoles / NHLI via Getty Images)
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