All DiPietro does is stop the puck
Canucks draft pick doesn’t play things by the book but fans will love his unique style
When goaltending prospect Michael DiPietro hears what followers of the Vancouver Canucks are saying about him, he breaks into a laugh that’s both robust and infectious.
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asks, smiling.
We’re pretty sure it’s all good. We hope so, anyway. And so do the Canucks. They targeted DiPietro heading into the National Hockey League entry draft, and got him in the third round, 64th overall.
Ask some in the goalie community how Vancouver did, and they’ll say: “Well, no one plays like Michael DiPietro.”
He’s part wild hare and part Jonathan Quick on the ice. He’s athletic, instinctual and strings together ridiculously dramatic barrel-roll saves like some of us binge watch TV shows, one after another.
In a sport dominated by buttoned up, technique-obsessed, risk-limiting netminders who roam locker-rooms like giants, DiPietro is a wonderful throwback.
“I’m a unique goaltender,” he said. “I play like Quick but with Marty Brodeur mixed in.
“There is a goalie book, but for me, it doesn’t matter. I’ll throw it away and do whatever it takes to stop a puck. That’s what I do.”
And boy is it fun to watch, even in practice.
He doesn’t have size — he’s listed at 6-feet tall — or a pro style, and that last one may just be precisely why the Canucks drafted him.
With his athleticism and flair for the “wow,” DiPietro was as good as it gets in the Ontario Hockey League at age 17. He finished top five in every meaningful goaltending category, set the Windsor Spitfires’ record for shutouts and helped shock the CHL world by leading his team to a Memorial Cup title.
You could understand if the Canucks were thinking “just wait until he adds the goalie book.”
That, by the way, was one of the goals this week as DiPietro worked with Dan Cloutier at the Canucks’ prospects camp.
“Adding a more technical side will help me, for sure, especially when I’m making the second save, so I don’t have to go right into desperation mode.
“If I push and stay square to the puck for the second save, and the third, it can buy me some time and let me be more controlled in my movements.”
Cloutier got to see some of DiPietro’s arsenal of desperation saves up close this week.
“I pulled out some of my paddle saves and some jumps across the crease,” DiPietro said. “He loved it. He loves the instinct because, at the end of the day, tracking is a big part of goaltending. But when you get in that five- to 10-foot radius, you have to rely on instincts and trust your brain.”
With a background that’s Italian and French, maybe it shouldn’t surprise anyone that DiPietro’s personality bursts through his goalie pads, not unlike Roberto Luongo.
And similar to Luongo, family is extremely important to DiPietro.
“My mom passed away when I was five, and after that, my dad met my stepmom,” DiPietro said when asked how he became a goaltender. “When I was about seven, I saw my stepbrother make a save on a breakaway in a house-league game.
“It was just house league, but it meant everything to him. Momentum changed and they ended up winning the game. I turned to my dad and said ‘I want to be a goalie.’ I love the pressure. I love that the goalie can win a game, or lose a game.”
DiPietro grew up in the Windsor area, about 40 minutes away from where the Spitfires play.
“My parents are at every game,” DiPietro said. “They have season tickets and I know exactly where they sit. Mom tends to cover her eyes because she can’t bear watching.
“It’s funny, because they’ll record the games and she’ll re-watch them at home with my dad when she knows what happened.”
DiPietro won big this season, ending it with a 4-0 in the Memorial Cup final, where he was the best goalie, finishing with a .932 save percentage. In the deciding game, he made 32 saves as Windsor won despite being outshot 35-22.
“I’m competitive in anything I do and I think that’s what has made me the goalie I am,” DiPietro said.
Those Memorial Cup games happened after host Windsor endured a 44-day layoff between games, something that was supposed to destroy any chance they had of winning.
“They kept us busy and the coaches broke up the (44 days) into four phases,” DiPietro said. “The first phase was hard. You were at the rink for about six hours, half on the ice and half off it.
“It included hill runs and five-kilometre runs at 7 a.m. It was hard, but it was probably the best 44 days of our lives, because it brought everyone together.”
How did he avoid rust setting in after going more than a month without playing?
“A lot of people try to over-complicate the goaltending position, but it’s not that hard,” he said. “You just don’t let that black thing go over the goal-line.”
NOTE: The Canucks have signed minor-league winger Joseph LaBate to a one-year, two-way contract.