#p!gif:flames

[puckpocketed]

17/03/2024 - Post-game interview: Devin Cooley's NHL debut

First game; that's something I've been working towards my entire life, so I'm really happy that happened. And for it to happen for my hometown team that I grew up watching was pretty special.

What did you think of your performance tonight?

DC: Man, that one — that stings, y'know. This, the game, stings. It was — we were so close.

I wasn't happy with the first [goal]. I thought, I sometimes reach and extend when I could just shift. And then, like, I read it perfectly. I knew what was going to happen, if I could just shift my body over [it] hits me right in the chest. But instead I reached and got a piece of it. And then, y'know, two tough bounces. That was disappointing. And then y'know, another that was a screen.

I'm gonna go over video soon and figure out how I can improve and make those four saves and do a better job of keeping my team in it.

+ Bonus from Brian Daccord on The Eye Test

Who’s a goalie that really pleasantly surprised you when all was said and done?

BD: Well, I’ll give a shout out to him now and he deserves all the credit in the world: it’s Devin Cooley. Just got his first NHL win, and there’s a guy that… He was with Joey in Muskegon in the USHL and — 6 foot 5, athletic, dynamic goalie. Didn’t have the structure, right? And he identified the fact; “Hey, if I go train at Stop It [Goaltending] in the summers, if I go work on my mechanics and structure and put it with my system, I’m going to end up pretty good.” So he comes to us and he's a walk-on, like a non-scholarship, third goalie at Denver [University]. And ironically enough I just met up with the staff there a few minutes ago from Denver and [their] goalie guy pulls me aside and he says, “Hey I just want to congratulate you on Devin. We saw it every year he came back. We saw him get better and better.” And it was great, made me feel awesome right? But it was the fact that [Devin] identified what he needed, okay?

And everybody, like, everybody’s not the same. Some guys need to be on the ice all summer, some guys need to not touch the ice all summer, right? Like some guys need to work on their mental game, some guys need to get their body strong. Like everybody’s different, he just recognised what he needed, and ironically that’s something that we do very well from a structure and mechanic standpoint.

He would come, he would get an Airbnb for eight weeks and he’d be on the ice day. In the weight room, we have a 15,000 foot goalie centre and [inaudible]. He’d be in there every day just grinding. And to see the walk-on, the third guy at Denver end up the starter, and up playing in the NHL, like that’s, that’s awesome. It’s just like, awesome to be a part of, like we’re a small part of that, you know, the major thing is him and the work and the effort and what he did to do it, but it’s fun to be a small part of that.

Yeah so he just grinded away, and then covid hit, and then East Coast [Hockey] League, American Hockey League, and then you know you’re buried in Buffalo. And Andrew Raycroft says this all the time, he says “you just got to stick around, guys. Just stick around, keep on getting better. Just get better every day.” And [Devin] stuck around, and then finally it looks like, oh they got too many guys in Buffalo, nothing’s working out, you know. The year is not working out the way he was hoping, next thing you know he’s in the NHL; flying charter, never going hungry.

And yeah so we talk about that a lot, it’s just, you know, goaltending; you can’t take the elevator, you gotta take the stairs.