Penguins relying on Game 1 hero Domingue

The Pittsburgh Penguins poured into the dressing room after the first period of overtime against the New York Rangers spent. Their legs heavy and the outcome still undecided, they dove headfirst into the fruit and sports drinks laid out by the team’s training staff. Well, not everyone. Louis Domingue wasn’t spent. Just hungry. The kind of gnaw in the stomach that comes from nervously sitting around for three-plus hours watching your teammates trade wild swings of momentum with the Rangers.

So Pittsburgh’s welltraveled backup goaltender looked over the options available Tuesday night and settled on a spicy pork dish. Just something to tide him over until postgame, whenever that might come. He wasn’t supposed to play. Not with starter Casey Desmith matching Vezina Trophy favorite Igor Shesterkin save for save through four periods.

Desmith didn’t make it through five periods. A lowerbody injury sent him skating toward the exit in the middle of the second overtime. Suddenly, the player who wondered if his love of the game would return as his 30th birthday approached was thrust into the spotlight.

What happened next will live on in Penguins lore.

Domingue turned aside all 17 shots he faced, buying his teammates enough time to win it on Evgeni Malkin’s deflection 5:58 into the third overtime.

Pittsburgh will carry a 1-0 lead into tonight’s Game 2 thanks in large part to a journeyman who hopes he may finally have found a sense of place.

The Penguins called up Alex D’orio from AHL affiliate Wilkes-barre/scranton on Wednesday, a serious hint that Domingue will get the nod in Game 2.

Domingue can only hope to pull off a repeat of his unlikely Game 1 cameo.

“You dream about that your whole life, you’re playing in overtime in the playoffs, are you kidding me?” Domingue said. “You think you’d be nervous in a situation like that, but it was just fun for me.”

The kind of fun that was hard for Domingue to find when the Penguins signed him to a one-year contract in September. He’d spent most of the 2020-21 season in the minors. More of the same awaited in Pittsburgh, which was set at the top with Allstar Tristan Jarry and Desmith.

Still, Domingue threw himself into his work. He posted a solid .924 save percentage playing for the Penguins’ AHL farm team and played well in two spot starts in the NHL.

“I wanted to be back in the NHL this year,” Domingue said. “I think I put in the effort to get back.”