Unusual circumstances led to Tommy Nappier earning a call up to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton on Friday.
The parent club Penguins have back-to-back road games this weekend, playing in Ottawa in Saturday and Washington on Sunday.
With Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith expected to split those starts, with Jarry taking the latter of the two games, the Penguins decided to give Jarry a little break, and not make him travel to Ottawa. DeSmith will start in Ottawa, and Louis Domingue was recalled from Wilkes-Barre to serve as backup. Jarry will then just meet the team in Washington on Sunday.
It's not unheard of for a team to do that for the first game of a back-to-back, but it's pretty rare. The only time I can remember the Penguins doing it in recent seasons was during the 2019-20 season, when Jarry wasn't brought on the first game in Montreal of a back-to-back. DeSmith was supposed to come up from Wilkes-Barre that day to back up Matt Murray, but lost his passport and Emil Larmi came up instead. It's hard to forget that one.
Domingue and Filip Lindberg have mostly been splitting the starts in Wilkes-Barre to start the season, other than opening weekend, when Nappier got the second start of the year when Domingue was injured.
With Domingue in Ottawa, Nappier was recalled from Wheeling to back up Lindberg for Friday's game against the Charlotte Checkers in Wilkes-Barre.
Lindberg allowed a goal on Charlotte's first shot of the game, but was rock-solid for the rest of his time in net, stopping the next 27 shots he faced over the rest of the first period and the entirety of the second.
But when Wilkes-Barre came out of the tunnel to start the third period of a 1-1 game, it wasn't Lindberg who led the team onto the ice.
It was Nappier.
It wasn't clear how it may have happened, but sometime in the game Lindberg suffered what J.D. Forrest later called a "lower-body injury" and was unavailable for the rest of the game.
"They told me to be ready with Lindy going down," Nappier told me after the game. "They didn't know if he was going to be ready to go for the third period. But coach came in with about five minutes left and told me I was going. I was just preparing and everything, and stepped in there and did what I have to do always, just stop the puck."
Nappier did what he had to do 10 times, to be exact. He stopped all 10 shots he faced in the third period, and was credited with the win after Chris Bigras scored the game-winner late in the third period.
"It felt great to get the win," Nappier said. "Once you see the first shot and just feel the puck and everything, you just gotta go in there and do what I've done since I was younger and stop the puck."
Forrest said that he thought Nappier looked "excellent" in his relief performance.
"He doesn't get rattled by much," Forrest said of Nappier. "Just his demeanor, just go in and try to stop the puck. He went in there and was real solid and made some good plays with the puck too, froze the puck at times where we needed to be able to take care of those rebounds around the net. Couldn't ask for better performance from him coming in off the bench like that in kind of an unknown situation, All of a sudden, you're going in for a period and then before you know it, you're starting the third. We thought he did an excellent job."
Nappier, 23, is in his first full professional season. He was signed to a rare three-year AHL contract last spring out of Ohio State, with the contract kicking in last season when he joined Wilkes-Barre mid-year. He played just three games in Wilkes-Barre, then finished the year in Wheeling, where he put up a .919 save percentage and a 2.46 goals-against average in seven appearances.
After Nappier's start in Wilkes-Barre's second game of this season, he was re-assigned to Wheeling, where he was again able to get more consistent playing time. He played in four games, posting a 2.62 goals-against average and a .877 save percentage.
"I want to be here," Nappier said after Friday's game. "But going down there and getting playing time and everything, getting in the games and just trying to do my best, it was good to get down there and play."
Penguins goaltending coach Andy Chiodo, in his role as goaltending development coach last season, spoke with me about his impressions of Nappier late last season.
"Tommy has had some real success at the college level," Chiodo said. "He's a big goaltender (6-3, 220), he reads the release really well. He makes a really good first save, covers a lot of net, reads the play very well. Like everybody else, he's going to take some time to develop as a pro and get acclimatized to the environment of professional hockey and the demands. But we all think there's a pretty good talent base there and skillset for him to add to."
Wilkes-Barre plays Charlotte again at home on Saturday at 6 p.m. Domingue is staying in Ottawa, and Forrest said that it's too early to tell whether Lindberg will be available, calling it a "wait-and-see" situation. Forrest said that they're still working through what logistically works best if Lindberg can't play tomorrow. Alex D'Orio on Friday night was seven hours down I-80 with the Nailers in Toledo, making 24 saves in a 3-2 Nailers win. He could be recalled to Wilkes-Barre for Saturday, or Wilkes-Barre could sign an emergency backup. In recent years, their emergency backup goaltender has been former Penguin Sebastien Caron, who still lives in the area and occasionally skates with the team.
Whether Nappier plays in Wilkes-Barre or goes back to Wheeling after this weekend, his goal for the rest of this season is the same.
"My goal is to be playing here and be a starting goalie, and just do whatever I can to help the team win."
MORE FROM THE GAME
• Wilkes-Barre is now 6-5-0-1, ranking fifth in the eight-team Atlantic Division in terms of points percentage.
• Jamie Devane returned from injury for the first time since Oct. 29. Justin Almeida sat out of the forward group to make room.
• While Nappier gets credited with the win for his perfect third period, Lindberg deserves recognition too for his 27-save performance. He was coming off of two rough games. He allowed five goals on 32 shots on Wednesday against Rochester. Last Friday he allowed four goals on 20 shots against Providence and got pulled, though in that game he really couldn't be faulted for any of the goals, and the switch was more so aimed at sparking the rest of the team. For a guy who was once told by his college coach that he needed to maintain a goals-against average under 2.00 in order to keep the starting job, and actually lived up to that expectation, Lindberg hasn't seen adversity like this in a long time, even as small of a sample size as this is. Forrest was impressed with the way Lindberg responded in this game.
"It's tough when you've gone a couple years probably without anything, some adversity that he just had to face," Forrest said. "They scored that one really in the first there right away, and then he was really good after that. I thought he did a good job and showed some growth there. It's not always going to happen the easy way. But he was solid for us for those two periods."
• Wilkes-Barre's first goal came from Valtteri Puustinen, after his linemates Felix Robert and Radim Zohorna both won board battles to maintain possession leading up to it. Zohorna set up Puustinen's one-timer for the goal:
Puustinen was scoreless in the four games leading up to this one, but Forrest still liked what he saw from Puustinen during that stretch.
"He's had some looks here, he's had a couple of posts," Forrest said. "He's got a couple where he shot it, it hit stick. But tonight was one of those ones where there's not a lot of guys that can bury that the way he did, just off the inside of the post right over the pad there on the far side. He's got a knack for that when he finds some space and gets an opportunity to make it count. When he was putting up points fast there, he was going post and in, he was finding those spots. That little stretch there, he wasn't getting as many looks, but he was just missing. I guess he got the sight worked on and found it today. It was a great play by Felix and Z to set everything up, just relentlessly going after pucks and staying on it, staying on it, staying on it to find an opportunity."
• Bigras moved forward and joined the play for his goal, which was his first as a Penguin. Jordy Bellerive showed a ton of speed leading up to the goal:
"He's been playing really hard for us," Forrest said. "I know his game a little bit from his previous teams, and actually I didn't know that he played as hard as he does. We really appreciate his effort every night. He's got a little sneaky offensive skill as well. He was able to bury that one tonight, a big goal for us. Guys appreciate what he puts into it, and it's nice to see him put that one in."
• The penalty kill went 2-for-2.
• The power play went 0-for-3, and now hasn't scored in 29 straight opportunities. While they were again scoreless on the man advantage tonight, this might have been the best the power play has looked in that run. Bigras' goal came in the next shift after one of those opportunities.
"Of course, you want to score goals," Forrest said. "But when you're out there generating chances and creating momentum, the team can go out there the next shift that feed off of that, that's really important."
THE ESSENTIALS
• Boxscore
• Scoreboard
• Standings
• Statistics
THE THREE STARS
As selected at Mohegan Sun Arena at Casey Plaza:
1. Chris Bigras, Penguins
2. Valtteri Puustinen, Penguins
3. Tommy Nappier, Penguins
THE HIGHLIGHTS
THE INJURIES
• Forward Anthony Angello is day-to-day with a lower-body injury, and has been since the start of the season.
• Goaltender Filip Lindberg is being evaluated for an undisclosed lower-body injury.
THE LINEUPS
Forrest's lines and pairings:
Felix Robert - Radim Zohorna - Valtteri Puustinen
Sam Poulin - Michael Chaput - Kasper Bjorkqvist
Filip Hallander - Jordy Bellerive - Nathan Legare
Jamie Devane - Jonathan Gruden - Kyle Olson
Matt Bartkowski - Taylor Fedun
Chris Bigras - Dylan MacPherson
Niclas Almari - Mitch Reinke
And for Geordie Kinnear's Checkers:
Aleksi Heponiemi - Zac Dalpe - Grigori Denisenko
Kole Lind - Alex True - Logan Hutsko
Scott Wilson - Luke Henman - Serron Noel
Henry Bowlby - Cole Schwindt - Carsen Twarynski
Gustav Olofsson - Cale Fleury
Matt Kiersted - Connor Carrick
Max Gildon - Chase Priske
THE SCHEDULE
The Penguins will host the Checkers again on Saturday at 6 p.m.
THE CONTENT
Visit our team page for everything.
