CALGARY – Amidst his latest post-game sideshow, Devin Cooley stopped dead in his tracks.
“I already know the DMs I'm going to be getting from Team Tank: Just stop winning, idiot!” he chuckled, as if scrawling the words with his hands.
“But we're going to keep doing our best, and keep trying to win.”
His Calgary Flames had just won consecutive games for the first time since February, following up a win over the defending champs with a 2-1 squeaker over the Minnesota Wild Thursday.
The common thread was Cooley, whose latest masterpiece was a 36-save clinic he punctuated with meanderings with the media sure to find their way all over the internet once again.
A sampling from the NHL’s Most Interesting Man, who two days earlier went viral trying to explain the difference between playing with a conscious and an unconscious brain:
“Yeah, just a lot of thoughts popping in the head, and say like, ‘you know, you can move on - you don't have to stick around here, go away,” he explained, wide-eyed and abnormally loud, to the assembled press.
“And then sometimes the thoughts stick around and they're in your head for a while, and you're like, ‘OK, you can stick around, you can hang out here. I'm not gonna think about you, and you can hang out.’”
What we think he was trying to say was that he maintained a level of chill that somehow allowed him to withstand a third-period onslaught that saw the Wild climb within one, only to be denied with a stop on the final shot while Cooley lay prone on his back.
It gave the Flames their third win in four games, which is a bounce-back few saw coming after the team was outscored by more than a couple touchdowns their first five games.
Cooley said he always felt like it was just a matter of time before his team would return to being the diligent defensive unit it has to be to mask its scoring deficiencies.
What made Thursday’s win even more impressive is that it was done with two first-period power-play goals, and a penalty kill that subsequently killed off all four Kirill Kaprizov-led power plays to hold on.
And they did it all without their captain and best defensive player, Mikael Backlund, who is out day-to-day with an ailment.
Rookie call-up Jonathan Castagna played a big part in filling Backlund’s shoes defensively, while Martin Pospisil had his best outing of the season.
But this, make no mistake, was a team effort — the kind needed if this team is going to compete regularly through the early stages of their rebuild.
“Unfortunately, it was a bad start for us this year, and I think we've pulled the layers back and found a foundation that works for us - what's acceptable and what's not,” said veteran Ryan Strome.
“Those are two pretty good teams. We played well. We played strong. There's a great buy-in. Everyone's committed to doing the things the right way, and it feels much better than the first couple efforts. So I think we're moving in the right direction.”
Team Tank needn’t worry — there will still be plenty of losses ahead, and top draft picks to select.
But the key to getting through these lean years is ensuring the culture and work ethic remain healthy while playing a structured game.
Mission accomplished against three good teams, including Anaheim, their first victim of the year.
“I think the players are understanding what they have to do, night in, night out,” said coach Ryan Huska, who got goals from Aydar Suniev and Joel Farabee as part of the team’s increasingly dangerous power play.
“We're getting there.”
All fans should really hope for this year is an honest effort and continuous growth from the youngsters – which was on full display against Minnesota.
Zayne Parekh is snapping the puck around on the power play, and Suniev’s world-class shot paid off again.
“I'm just happy for the group,” said Strome.
“We've had our ups and downs already, but the last couple days feels good. The guys in here deserve a lot of credit — coaches, players, for digging in and figuring out what we need to do and following the game plan. From where we were, 10, 14 days ago… it feels really good. The goaltender was pretty good too.”
Here it comes, the kicker that proves they’re starting to feel looser:
“I mean, he's unconscious,” deadpanned Strome.
“Literally.”
