Devin Cooley is detailing what may have been the toughest stretch of his pro hockey career — and yet he doesn’t stop smiling.
If anything, his grin is only growing.
One of two candidates to open this season as the Calgary Flames backup puck-stopper, the 28-year-old Cooley has just been asked what went wrong for him last season, when he was the AHL’s best netminder in the early stages but then struggled mightily in the second half.
The happy-go-lucky goalie is eager to explain, excited to share what he learned during a summer of study and self-discovery. During the off-season, he devoured about 20 books on a wide range of topics.
“You want to talk about finding meaning in suffering…” Cooley told Postmedia at the outset of training camp, reflecting on the 2024-25 campaign and the story behind what looked on his stat-sheet like a drastic drop-off. “I had a concussion in the middle of January and I think I might have come back a little too early. My physical symptoms went away but what lingered and what I think derailed my season were the emotional issues that came with it.
“I started having really bad emotional issues after my concussion. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t sleep. I was stressed out all the time. And when you have those things going on and you’re trying to play games, it’s just never going to work out.
“I was really struggling without playing and then I started playing and because I was struggling, I couldn’t perform the way I wanted to, which made things even worse. It was just a really vicious cycle. It snowballed to the point where I had to go to my goalie coach and say, ‘Hey, I can’t play … I need to step away, figure out what’s going on.’
“It was a really tough spot to be in because the opportunity for me was so exciting,” Cooley continued. “I was on pace for a record-breaking year. I was an AHL all-star. I was having so much fun. I was playing every single game. Like, what an opportunity, and you don’t want to lose that.
“At first, I thought, ‘OK, maybe I’m just going through a slump.’ And what you hear when you’re going through a slump is, ‘Don’t change anything. It’s going to come back.’ So I wasn’t changing anything in my routine, I was keeping the pace and things kept getting worse and worse and worse. And because I was uneducated on the topic and I didn’t understand what was going on, I had no resources to really help myself and I wasn’t speaking to the proper medical staff and speaking up about what was going on because I thought, ‘Oh, it will pass. It’s just a bad few weeks.’ And then all of a sudden, from my first half of the season, it’s like I was a different person the whole second half.”
During the brick-wall phase of Cooley’s season, fans figured this late-bloomer from Los Gatos, Calif., was a shoo-in to become the Flames’ full-time backup for 2025-26, a belief only bolstered by the fact that his contract has upgraded to a one-way.
But as his save percentage dwindled, as his goals-against average grew and as he struggled through a span of five weeks and 10 consecutive starts without a victory for the Wranglers, some started to second-guess that plan.
The Flames tried to convince Dan Vladar to stay as Dustin Wolf’s second-stringer, but he was lured by more opportunity — and at least as much loot — in Philadelphia.
Cooley’s competition now comes from Ivan Prosvetov, who returns to North America after spending last winter back home in the KHL.
Prosvetov, 26, may have nosed ahead in the backup battle after he stopped 28 of 31 shots — including several point-blank beauties — during Wednesday’s 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks in Abbotsford, B.C.
Cooley, who allowed three on 29 shots in his first exhibition outing of the fall, is expected to audition again Saturday at Winnipeg.
“I’m really just focused on myself and my own game and putting my best foot forward,” Cooley said. “I’m not really worried about the competition or who’s saying what or what could possibly happen. I just know that if I play my game, if I play the way that I know I can play, that I’m going to put myself in a really good position to potentially make the team.”
That was his sole focus through the summer.
He continues to work, of course, on some of the components that the Flames goalie coaches have identified as key to his success — staying calm in his crease, managing his depth and relying more on his 6-foot-5 frame than his flexibility and explosiveness.
But as he strives for another NHL opportunity, with six big-league starts on his resume so far, he also has been burning through chapters as quickly as his teammates churn through rolls of stick tape.
Related
“I’ve become obsessed with reading. It’s my new favourite hobby,” Cooley said. “It’s all I do now. Just any topic that I’m interested in and it’s crazy the amount of information out there. I’m just kicking myself — I can’t believe I did not dive into this stuff beforehand.
“I probably read about 20 books this off-season and I have created this document that’s, like, 35 pages. It’s basically a blueprint for how I want to live my life, and I just keep adding to it. It’s all about mental health and physical health and how the two combine and neuroscience and neuroplasticity and brain health. I’m just trying to learn everything I possibly can to put myself in the best frame of mind.”
Which is why, as he details what was a really difficult stretch, he is bubbling with enthusiasm. The smile shows it.
“I talk about finding meaning through suffering, and that was it,” Cooley said. “Because if I never went through that, I would have never gone down this path of learning everything I can about physical health and mental health. And now, I feel like no matter what happens, even if I get another concussion or I get cut in two weeks or whatever, I’m going to have the exact tools I need and be equipped to deal with anything.
“And that’s really exciting. I was really disappointed for a long time with how things ended up last season. But looking back now, I’m glad it happened. Because it’s going to make me a better goalie and a better person.”