A netminder in a No. 00 jersey turned heads at Maple Leafs training camp on Monday, and the mystery didn’t last long.
That goalie is Brendan Bonello, the 27-year-old from Mississauga who is now Toronto’s designated emergency backup goalie, or EBUG. He’ll be the team’s third option in net, but only under one very specific condition: if both Maple Leafs goalies are knocked out of a game, he’s the one who steps in.
This season, that setup is no longer just a home-ice quirk. The NHL has changed the rule so every team has to bring its own third goalie, including on the road. In the past, the Leafs and other clubs could lean on a local emergency option at the arena, with Scotiabank Arena often featuring a rotating group of area goalies available to either team.
That system produced one of the league’s strangest and most famous moments, when 42-year-old Zamboni driver David Ayres was called on by the Carolina Hurricanes after James Reimer and Petr Mrazek both went down. Ayres played half a game and helped Carolina win 6-3.
The league wanted to move away from the optics of beer league goalies being on standby, and it also wanted to close the door on any roster gamesmanship at the position. There was another practical issue, too: teams had to be sure their EBUG was actually in the building, instead of at home asleep or out at a party.
Bonello brings a real hockey background to the role. The 6-foot-2, 225-pound goalie came through the Toronto Junior Canadiens, spent a long stretch in the OHL with Saginaw and Kingston, and also logged three pro games with the ECHL Cincinnati Cyclones in 2021-22. During the final stretch with captain Matthews passing a puck to each Leaf, he flipped one to new EBUG Brendan Bonello, a 27-year-old from Mississauga who played for ECHL Cincinnati last year.
In Other News...
Travis Greens First Camp Decisions Say A Lot About Ottawas Ceiling
The opening days of Senators camp have looked less like a scramble for jobs and more like an early test of chemistry. Travis Green is spending his first practices sorting out combinations and seeing what fits, a sign Ottawa is approaching this season with a different kind of urgency after back-to-back playoff appearances and a clear desire to keep climbing in the Eastern Conference. The coach has stressed having options, but the bigger point is that the roster already feels settled enough for him to focus on how the pieces might actually work together.
Some of the early groupings hint at the sort of top-end talent Ottawa wants to lean on, with Tim Stutzle alongside Andre Burakovsky and Drake Batherson as one of the more intriguing looks. Greens approach suggests he is trying to identify which alignments can drive play rather than simply fill out a lineup card, and that matters for a team that no longer wants to be judged by just getting in the door. The next step is figuring out whether these looks can translate from camp drills into the kind of balance and depth contending teams usually need. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Blue Line Move Raises New Concern About Artem Zub
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His presence also puts a sharper focus on Artem Zubs status, with the defenseman currently unavailable. Ottawa is already trying to map out its early-season picture on the blue line, so any added help has a purpose beyond just filling a practice spot, and this latest move suggests the club still has questions it wants answered before camp settles in. [Read more 🡒]
Artem Zubs Camp Setback Creates An Early Senators Concern
The Senators are heading into camp with an early dent in their blue line plans, after the club confirmed Artem Zub will miss the first two weeks because of a lower-body injury. For a team trying to settle its defensive pairings and get on the ice with some continuity, any delay for a veteran minutes-eater matters, even if it comes before the real games begin.
There is at least one piece of reassurance for Ottawa in that Zub avoided surgery, which keeps the situation from sounding worse than it is at this stage. Still, the setback pushes back the start of his camp work and leaves the Senators waiting a little longer to see how quickly he can ramp back up once he is cleared to return. [Read more 🡒]