Kovacevic: 'I'm an NHL goalie and proud of that'

Eddie Johnston, 80 years young and energetic as ever, once was an NHL goaltender.

Sorry, he was a goal-keeper.

That's his term of choice to this day, and it's more than just a charm. When he speaks it, it's as if he hopes to resuscitate it. Or, at the least, to remind us of that half-century of hockey when men were men, masks were for Halloween and the backups were equipment managers summoned only in emergencies. They didn't just tend the net. They would keep it. It was theirs and no one else's. They bled, they were stitched up, and they stayed put.

They were defined by their valor far more than for cutting angles or controlling rebounds.

To put that into a modern perspective, they were Jeff Zatkoff.

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Less than four minutes into the Penguins' 5-2 rout of the Rangers, this in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs Wednesday night at Consol Energy Center, among the first of Zatkoff's 35 saves was this point-blank blocker thrust on Kevin Hayes:

See the thrust there?

Hayes pounced on that puck, then got all of the snapper. Ticketed the thing top-shelf, too.

Let's not kid anyone: If that finds its target, everything could have changed. A crowd that's historically tightened up at the first trace of anything amiss in the playoffs could have gone into a self-chokehold. The team itself, having conceded 12 of the game's opening 15 shots, could have fallen far behind. No Patric Hornqvist hat trick, no Sidney Crosby breakaway laser, no Tom Kuhnhackl short-handed game-changer ... none of that might have followed. Because hockey, then and now and forever, is a sport of momentum.

And you just know the told-you-sos on Zatkoff would have rained down in a raging hurry.

I asked him about that one save:

I then asked about that thrust with the blocker. It wasn't enough that he'd squared up perfectly to Hayes or that his blocker was in precise position. No, he had to thrust it.

Like he was punching back in a fight.

"I'm not going to lie: That one felt good," he replied. "It's not just that you make the saves. It's that you read the play and see the puck so well that you ... it just feels right."

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Late Tuesday night, less than 24 hours before the Penguins and Rangers were to face off for Game 1 of their Stanley Cup playoff series, Zatkoff's phone rang. It was Mike Bales, his goaltending coach, workout partner and bona fide friend. It was Bales' job to break the news to Zatkoff that he -- and not Marc-Andre Fleury, who'd only just resumed practicing after a concussion -- would get the start. And it was Bales who further informed that he wasn't to whisper a word to anyone. Not even teammates.

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The first step, of course, was to not show anyone anything.

"I'm not allowed to say anything," Zatkoff would say after Wednesday's morning skate. And it would eventually become evident why. Mike Sullivan set up a ruse for all of us. He had Fleury, who's been cleared to practice but not to play, leave the ice first, almost always an indicator as to which goaltender will start. And the coach then did absolutely nothing to dissuade the notion that Fleury might be available.

It could be that it worked. Alain Vigneault, Sullivan's counterpart, spoke openly of how the Rangers were "preparing as if Fleury will be the starter."

Don't feel bad, Alain. A lot of us, myself included, fell for it. I was stunned to see Zatkoff step on to the ice for warmups, an even stronger indicator as to who will start, and even the rest of the Penguins weren't told by Sullivan until 6 p.m., two hours before the puck dropped.

Still, I should have known better.

As far back as Monday, there was an extra edge to Zatkoff. Oh, he was still affable. His personality hardly has another gear in that regard. But those remarks about wanting to prove people wrong, that was something more.

Then on Wednesday morning, though he joked about how "hey, I'll talk with you about anything other than hockey, like your life or whatever," there was an uncommon intensity to his look. One longtime employee observed that he didn't even want to get close to Zatkoff.

We all should have known better.

And Zatkoff should have known better, too, about how this might affect him. After the skate, he returned home to take the ritual nap. Only it wound up becoming a series of naps.

"I'd fall asleep, but I'd get right back up," he'd confess. "Every few minutes, it felt like."

The fight, it seemed, started early.

"I was already playing the game."

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“Zatkoff was unbelievable," Eric Fehr said. "And we didn’t expect anything else, to be honest. I think he’s a really good goalie. When he goes out there, he gives us everything he’s got every time. We respect him.”

And pull up a chair for this from Matt Cullen: "He kept us in this. We weren’t good early, and he was awesome throughout. I’ll tell you, everyone in this room loves him. He got such a tough shake all season. He really did. But he’s as good of a guy as you’ll come across. To be honest with you, I don’t think I’ve ever had a better teammate. There’s something really special about the guy. We were playing hard for him. What a guy. What a teammate."

Next came a slight pause.

"He just kept on fighting."

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"I'm an NHL goaltender," Zatkoff would tell me. "And I'm proud of it."

That was it for us, as we then experienced a most welcome interruption.

Johnston still comes to most games and, when he does, he's embraced by everyone inside Consol from Mario Lemieux, the kid he drafted, to Pat the usher and Reg the cook. But I can't recall the last time I saw anyone so delighted to see him as Zatkoff was here.

All the microphones and cameras were gone by this point, and the franchise's patriarch, having waited patiently for his chance, approached to extend his right hand.

"Congratulations," EJ told Zatkoff as they shook. "Great, great game."

Zatkoff's eyes widened almost as much as his smile.

But before he had a chance to respond, EJ offered this keepsake, from one keeper to another:

"You won that game ... with your talent."