NEW YORK - In the basement of her home in small-town Saskatchewan, Darlene Tokarski would roll up a pair of socks - usually a pair of her husband's sturdy work socks - and fire away at her young son. He demanded that she play, and that he be the goaltender in a game they came to call 'sockball.'
It was all Dustin Tokarski wanted to do.
'I could get him to do anything for sockball,' Darlene said on Friday. 'Clean his room. Rake leaves. Do this. Do that. It was, 'well, as soon as you do this, we'll play sockball.' And it was done.' '
Sockball evolved into hockey, and hockey evolved into an obsession, one that has carried him through a career marked by international victories, professional disappointment and, within the last week, a burst of stardom and opportunity. The sockball veteran is making a name for himself in the National Hockey League playoffs.
Tokarski, 24, was third on the depth chart when the Montreal Canadiens opened the post-season last month. An injury to starting goaltender Carey Price in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference final forced management into a decision viewed as a gamble at the time.
The team placed its fate on Tokarski, a rookie not quite as tall as his peers, and not nearly as experienced as the goaltender at the other end of the ice, where the New York Rangers employ Henrik Lundqvist, a man known as 'King,' even in Manhattan.
On Thursday night, Tokarski stopped 35 of 37 shots to help the Canadiens to a 3-2 win in overtime at Madison Square Garden to stop the Rangers from taking a 3-0 series lead. All he did, really, was help save Montreal's season.
'I never saw a lot of it,' Darlene said with a laugh on Friday. 'I honestly didn't. I'm a pacer. I walk away, and I get glimpses. And that's all I'm saying.'
She watched the game - or glimpsed it, at least - at her daughter's home in Humboldt, Sask., a half-hour's drive west of where Tokarski was raised, in the tiny town of Watson, where the family once ran a grain farm. They stopped farming 10 years ago, right around the time their son moved away for hockey.
His height has often been reported as one reason Tokarski has never found a stable home, especially at the professional level. He is listed at 5-foot-11, making him four inches shorter than Price, the man he has replaced.
Tokarski has been successful. He was in net when Canada won a fifth straight gold medal at the world junior championships, in 2009, on a team that also featured defenceman P.K. Subban, the current Canadiens star. And Tokarski has also shown promise in the AHL.
He has not, however, shown that he could have a later-life growth spurt to push him above six feet in height.
'I read that in so many reports, over and over,' his mother said. 'And I'm just laughing to myself, and I'm thinking, 'if you would ever give him a chance, you'd see that he can do this, and he's not too small.' '
The Tampa Bay Lightning drafted him in 2008, but not until the fifth round. He was the first goaltender taken who was shorter than six feet that year. The goaltender taken before him, Jason Missiaen, was listed as 6-foot-8.
'If you look at a ruler, like, one inch? Really, what's the difference between 5-foot-11 and six feet?' Darlene asked. 'I think, if he would have been six feet, that he would have had a lot more attention, and thought of a lot higher than he had.'
The level of interest is pretty high this week. His name dominated most talk around the two teams on Friday, the first of two off-days before they meet in Game 4 on Sunday.
'It always sucks when you lose your best player,' Canadiens forward Lars Eller said. 'You can't replace Carey Price. But Tokarski has given us terrific goaltending. He gave us a chance to win Game 2 and he did [Thursday], again. And that's what we're going to need from him.'
The win on Thursday was the first NHL post-season win of his career. It was also only his 12th game in the NHL.
'We knew who he was before,' said Rangers forward Carl Hagelin. 'Just never played against him.'
'You know, it's the unknown aspect,' said Rangers defenceman Kevin Klein. 'We've seen him for two games now, and we saw some clips against him, I think it was against Buffalo. I mean, you know what to expect.'
That might not be true, especially for Tokarski, now in the middle of a fascinating ride.
'It's the Stanley Cup playoffs,' he said with a smile. 'It's what you dream about.'
His parents are hoping to watch him play in Game 5, in Montreal. Darlene has a sister who lives there, which means they have a place to stay. Tokarski earned US$80,000 with Montreal's AHL affiliate this season, so unlike his new multi-millionaire teammates, cost would still be a consideration.
But it would not stop them from going.
'It's very overwhelming,' Darlene said. 'We've seen him go through the last 10 years, through the disappointments and just working so, so hard, with that desire in him. So when we're watching him do this, we're just smiling.'
Post By http://sports.nationalpost.com/2014/05/23/montreal-canadiens-goalie-dustin-tokarski-becoming-cinderella-story-of-nhl-playoffs/
0 comments Blogger 0 Facebook
Post a Comment