{"id":547339,"date":"2026-04-08T12:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547339\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T12:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T12:30:22","slug":"devin-cooley-nominated-for-bill-masterton-memorial-trophy-by-calgary-phwa-chapter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547339\/","title":{"rendered":"Devin Cooley nominated for Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy by Calgary PHWA chapter"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an old saying that good things come to those who wait. There\u2019s no better example of someone thriving after working, battling and persevering than Calgary Flames netminder Devin Cooley<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A full-time NHL player for the first time at the age of 28, Cooley had to grind to get where he is in the hockey world. From his days with the United States Hockey League\u2019s Muskegon Lumberjacks \u2013 where he infamously had that league\u2019s worst save percentage \u2013 and his first college season with the University of Denver as a third-string walk-on, to battling to find his game (and himself) again after a concussion, Cooley has been through a ton over the past decade.<\/p>\n

As selected by the Calgary chapter of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, Cooley has been nominated for the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy.<\/p>\n

Selected annually by the full membership of the PHWA (from a pool of nominees from each of the 32 local chapters), the Masterton Trophy is given to the NHL player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey. The award is named after the late Bill Masterton, who passed away in 1968 following injuries sustained in a game while playing for the Minnesota North Stars.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I just love the game, really,\u201d said Cooley, speaking with the local media following a recent Flames practice. \u201cThat\u2019s what it comes down to, is I just have so much fun playing. I love coming to the rink every day. But it wasn\u2019t always like that, you know. A lot of the times, most of the years I\u2019ve been pretty miserable, you know. It\u2019s just a lot going on a lot of issues, a lot of things not going my way, a lot of stuff I wasn\u2019t happy with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it wasn\u2019t until really this year where I was like, \u2018Hey, whoa, you have all the control on how you perceive anything, like all the impressions and how you act towards things and how you want to feel is a hundred percent in your control\u2019 and I was like \u2018well that\u2019s pretty exciting,\u2019 so then I just switched that up and now I love the game again. And I\u2019ve always loved the the game I just didn\u2019t really like everything else that came with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A product of North California, Cooley played a season with Muskegon in the USHL and then bounced between the NAHL and BCHL for a season before landing as the third-string goalie for the University of Denver in 2017-18. He went pro after three seasons in the NCAA, and grinded in the minors for parts of four seasons before finally making his NHL debut with the San Jose Sharks late in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n

Cooley signed as a free agent with the Flames during the 2024 off-season<\/a> and was superb during the first half of the 2024-25 season with the AHL\u2019s Calgary Wranglers. But a concussion in early January spelled the end of his strong play, as he seemed to lose his mojo after his return from injury and struggled to get back to where he was before the injury, on and off the ice.<\/p>\n

Cooley described what last season\u2019s challenges were like and how he got through them.<\/p>\n

Yeah, that was one of the hardest years for sure. And I think it\u2019s because I didn\u2019t really know what was happening with me\u2026 I had a great goalie coach with [MacKenzie] Skapski. I knew exactly what I needed to do now. We created a plan. Everything was going working to plan. I was like, wow, I\u2019m finally playing to my potential. This is me as a goalie. This is great. And then I had my concussion and I came back and nothing worked anymore. It was like I was a totally different person. You know, I just felt like I was a ghost. I\u2019ve said this before. I felt like I was just like a ghost haunting the Earth. I just felt like I was almost like dead, like floating above myself. It was weird. It was such a crazy feeling. And I was trying to play on top of that because I\u2019m like, this is my first year being a starter. I\u2019ve got to make the most of the opportunity. I\u2019ve got to play games. So I kept forcing it and forcing it and forcing it. And it just got worse and worse and worse\u2026<\/p>\n

But in saying that, the most amazing thing about that is because of that happening, I spent an entire summer, an entire off season working on the mental side of the game and working on understanding the brain, understanding neuroscience, psychology, performance psychology, just like everything I possibly could to to help out the mental side of things. And then because I did that, now I have the technical side of the game, my natural talent and ability, and now the mental side of things is probably the strongest it\u2019s ever been in my entire life\u2026<\/p>\n

And none of that would have happened without getting that concussion and really falling behind.\u00a0 And it\u2019s just, looking back, you\u2019re like, wow, that sucked. but I\u2019m so thankful that it happened because now it\u2019s made me into what I am today.<\/p>\n

Cooley won the backup role behind Dustin Wolf in training camp and established himself as a full-time NHLer at 28, in his sixth season of pro hockey, and has emerged as one of the top statistically-performing goaltenders in the league this season. He signed a two year extension earlier this season, a reward for his hard work and perseverance since joining the Flames organization.<\/p>\n

Two Flames players have been honoured with the Masterton Trophy in the club\u2019s history: Lanny McDonald in 1982-83 and Gary Roberts in 1995-96. Justin Kirkland was the club\u2019s nominee last season<\/a>. The three finalists for this award will be announced later this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an old saying that good things come to those who wait. There\u2019s no better example of someone…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[895,26,5294,896,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-547339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary-flames","8":"tag-calgary","9":"tag-calgary-flames","10":"tag-calgaryflames","11":"tag-flames","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116369098304574708","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}