RALEIGH — Breaking the silence in a dressing room quieted by a 1-0 overtime loss, Devin Cooley was asked about the opportunity he’s been presented.
In a season in which the Calgary Flames‘ backup wasn’t expected to get many more than a half dozen starts by Christmas, his number was called Sunday for the fifth time in six games.
No, Dustin Wolf is not nursing an injury, nor are they resting him.
Cooley has simply played his way to prominence, with numbers that have him among league leaders in goals against (1.88) and save percentage (.930).
On Sunday, he was at his best once again, keeping the Flames in a tight game against the league’s third-best offence, until Nikolaj Ehlers poked home the winner three minutes into extra time.
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When asked how he’s managed to break through in such dramatic fashion, the 28-year-old rookie said his key is keeping it loose.
“I’m laughing, I’m smiling, I’m singing, you know, I’m making jokes,” said Cooley despite losing out on his first NHL shutout minutes earlier.
“(Andrei) Svechnikov comes up to me and he goes, ‘Give me a goal.’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t want to give you a goal.’ He says, ‘maybe five-hole?,’ and I say ‘maybe.’”
He then cited a third-period turnover of his that prompted him to have to poke away a centring pass.
“It’s a horrible play by me, but then I go in the corner, I’m like laughing, I’m looking at Wolfie and he’s laughing too,” said Cooley, who stopped 16 of 17 shots in a 1-0 loss.
“It just helps take away the severity of the mistakes you make and makes the game a lot more fun. That’s when I play my best.
“When I stop having fun, and I start gripping my stick a little too hard, that’s when maybe I don’t play so good. So I’m just gonna continue to try to have as much fun as possible.”
Anecdotes like these are not normal in a hockey world in which beige is always the colour of the day, and sticking out is shunned.
As coach Ryan Huska joked recently when asked about Cooley’s oversharing, “When I hear things like that, I just think, ‘goalie.’”
Craig Conroy thinks the same thing, but admits he’s been chastised by his wife for doing so.
“My wife even mentions that, because I’ll say, ‘Whoa, that was a lot,’ and she goes, ‘Craig, you used to say some stuff too,’” laughed the Flames GM, who was one of the more colourful, chatty types as a player.
“So, I get it. That’s just his personality. But, again, sometimes you’re like, ‘Oh, why would you say that?’ It’s just the wording sometimes. But then you hear the response, and people love it. It’s just kind of a breath of fresh air, and he’s being him. It’s fun.”
It started with the day he arrived at camp from San Jose two summers ago with a road trip tale that involved two flat tires, his pet rabbit Tito and an accident involving a truck spilling exploding whipped cream canisters.
Every chat since is full of animation, including the recent revelation that during games, he repeats a simple mantra to calm himself: “Nothing matters. Nobody cares. We’re all going to die.”
It went viral.
“I’m trying not to think too much about myself at all,” said Cooley, who went from being the best goalie in the AHL last season to the worst following a mid-season concussion.
“I think in previous years, and maybe even in pre-season, I was just so focused internally, stressed and second-guessing myself. And now it’s like, I’m only focused on what’s happening outside, and what the other team is doing, and trying to have a lot of fun while I play.
“I just continue to learn and continue to get better, and hopefully I can continue that for the whole season, because anybody in this league can have a stretch of, like, 10 good games as a goalie, but the test is if you can do it consistently over a season. So that’s kind of my goal is just to continue to progress and continue to be consistent.”
He’s getting more chances to do that, which is a significant development for a team worried in the pre-season it would have to play Wolf upwards of 60 times.
“Devin has been really good, so there isn’t a sense that we have to overplay Dustin,” said Huska, explaining his decision to keep playing Cooley.
“We have two good goaltenders now and Devin has proven that we need to look at him that way. He’s finding a way to get us points and making key saves at the right time, so you want to reward him.”
Asked if he could have fathomed getting a cluster of starts like this, given the pre-season struggles he had, he shrugged.
“I try not to think about it, you know, and I’ve said this a few times before, like, I don’t care if I play 50 games or five games or I’m not even here,” said Cooley.
“I just want to continue to take things day by day and continue to have fun with it. This is my purpose in life right now, you know? And this is what gives me energy and what gives me happiness, and what I enjoy more than anything. And I’m just happy to be here and continuing to learn and grow.”
