Following his Game 3 win, Louis Domingue leaned into a microphone at PPG Paints Arena, cutting off a local television reporter’s question about how it felt to win the game.
“Not the best,” Domingue said — a nod to his review of the spicy pork and broccoli meal he ate between overtimes of Game 1.
The Penguins are leaning into the cult-hero status of their third-string goaltender turned playoff starter. The media meal served prior to Game 3 included — you guessed it — spicy pork and broccoli. And Domingue is giving them plenty of material to work with.
During his press conference on Saturday night, Domingue cut into the hockey conversation to offer a quick “Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers,” which should only help his skyrocketing profile.
At the top line, of course, is the fact that he helped the Penguins to a 7-4 victory in Saturday’s Game 3, turning aside 32 of 36 shots as the Rangers employed a strategy of trying to blitz the netminder in hopes of forcing him into errors. (It did not hurt Domingue that the Rangers struggled to find the net on many of those attempts).
Following a second period in which they seized all the game’s momentum and tied it at four, the Rangers had their chances to take the lead in the third. But, when the Penguins were hemmed in on a power play early in the period, they leaned on Domingue. And when they needed him to make an acrobatic save on an Artemi Panarin one-timer with the game hanging in the balance later on, the 30-year-old proved up to the task.
And that proved enough to give the Penguins an opportunity to win — one that Danton Heinen quickly seized in scoring the game-winner.
“You got to give Louis Domingue credit,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant told reporters. “When it was 4-4, he made two or three great saves on our power play. That was a big part of the game.”
Over in Pittsburgh’s press conference room, Domingue was evangelizing.
“We believe in ourselves,” Domingue said. “Once you enter the dance, any team can win. We entered the series maybe as the underdog. But we certainly feel like we belong and we showed it tonight.”
Pittsburgh’s belief in itself, though, may come down to Domingue’s belief in himself.
Tristan Jarry skated on Saturday, which marks real progress as the Penguins’ No. 1 goaltender works to return from an injury, but it’s unclear how far he is from returning and if the Rangers really need to worry about seeing him. Casey DeSmith won’t play the rest of the way against the Blueshirts after core muscle surgery.
So, until someone says otherwise, this is Domingue’s show.
And he’s running it with flair.
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