Los Gatos native Devin Cooley lived a dream on Sunday afternoon as the starting goalie for his hometown San Jose Sharks.
It just didn’t have the feel-good ending he and his teammates wanted.
Clinging to a one-goal lead in the third period, Cooley and the Sharks allowed goals to Ryan Donato, Kevin Korchinski, and Joey Anderson in 83 seconds in what became a 5-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks in a game between the NHL’s two worst teams.
Cooley stopped 26 of 30 shots in his NHL debut as he became the first player from Santa Clara County to play a game for the Sharks (16-44-7). The former Jr. Sharks standout and University of Denver product was acquired by San Jose on March 8 from the Buffalo Sabres.
“The experience was obviously amazing,” Cooley said. “First game, that’s something I’ve been working towards my entire life, so, really happy that it happened.
“And for it to happen from my hometown team I grew up watching was pretty special.”
Cooley stopped 22 of 23 shots in the first two periods before the wheels fell off for San Jose in the third.
Sharks coach David Quinn blew up at the officials after San Jose defenseman Calen Addison and Blackhawks forward Tyler Johnson were both given roughing penalties.
That’s because it appeared at first that only Johnson would be penalized after he went after Addison for landing on top of wunderkind center Connor Bedard. Johnson and Addison briefly mixed it up before penalties were doled out at the 7:32 mark of the third.
The Sharks were leading 2-1 at that point, but Donato scored his 10th of the season as he collected a Jarred Tinordi pass and fired a shot past a partially screened Cooley. The Blackhawks continued to apply pressure before a deflected Korchinski shot from inside the blue line got past Cooley at the 11:51 mark for what would be the game-winning goal.
“Up until the four-on-four, I thought we played a good period,” Quinn said. “We managed the period, didn’t give him anything, and were playing a winning brand of hockey.
“When they got that one to tie it up, we just just couldn’t overcome our mistakes. Our mistakes were just too big.”
Anderson got an insurance goal 11 seconds later from around the net to help the Blackhawks (19-44-5) take a 4-2 lead and move four points ahead of the 32nd-place Sharks in the NHL’s overall standings.
“Man, that stings,” Cooley said. “We were so close.”
Ryan Carpenter and Klim Kostin both scored in the first period for the Sharks, now 0-4-0 on this road trip which concludes Tuesday in Nashville.
“At critical times and in critical areas,” Quinn said, “we just didn’t do enough to win.”
Cooley, 26, stopped 13 of 14 shots in the second period to help keep his team in front as the Sharks began to get a bit careless with the puck.
Philipp Kurashev finished off a Blackhawks odd-man rush at the 14:02 mark of the second period as the Sharks misplayed a 3-on-2 against. Bedard sent a puck across the ice to Johnson, who passed it back toward the middle of the ice where Kurashev tipped it past Cooley’s shoulder to cut San Jose’s lead to 2-1.
“I wasn’t happy with (Kurashev’s goal),” Cooley said. “I sometimes reach and extend when I could just shift. I read it perfectly. I knew what was going to happen. if I could just shift my body over, it hits me right in the chest. Instead, I reached and got a piece of it.”
Cooley limited the damage from there, though. Less than a minute after Kurashev’s goal, Chicago got another 2-on-1, but Cooley stopped a shot from Ryan Donato and two more Taylor Raddysh.
The Blackhawks outshot the Sharks 8-0 over the final 5:58 to end the second period.
“I thought he played well,” Quinn said of Cooley. “Made some big saves early and I thought he played well. I feel bad that we didn’t weren’t able to bring it to the finish line for him because I thought he deserved it.”
Cooley made eight saves in the first period as the Sharks took a 2-0 lead.
The Sharks opened the scoring at the 10:33 mark as Carpenter came in on a 2-on-1 with Alexander Barabanov on Blackhawks goalie Petr Mrazek, started by a pass from Kevin Labanc.
After Barabanov put a shot on net, Carpenter collected the rebound and scored his fifth goal of the season. Four of those goals have come against two of his former teams, as he had two against the New York Rangers and now two against the Blackhawks, with whom he played 168 games over three seasons from 2019 to 2022.
Later in the period, Mikael Granlund took a pass from Mario Ferraro while stationed behind the Blackhawks net. After waiting for a couple of moments, he found the stick of Kostin, who scored at the 16:32 mark to give the Sharks a 2-0 lead.
Since being acquired from the Detroit Red Wings on March 8, Kostin had two goals and two assists in five games, and he started Sunday on the top line with Granlund and Zetterlund.
