CRANBERRY, Pa. -- By day, Mike Chiasson is a goaltending development coach at the Lemieux Complex and the Penguins' manager of youth hockey.
By night, he's the Penguins' emergency backup goaltender. He brings his pads to PPG Paints Arena for every home game, staying prepared in case injuries to Tristan Jarry and Casey DeSmith (or to both of the opponent's goaltenders) force him into an NHL game.
The Penguins will occasionally call on Chiasson for a little help in practice, too. He'll put on his gear in his office across the hall from the Lemieux Complex's main rink and make the walk over to either fill in for a sick or injured goaltender, or help out as an extra third goaltender in practice.
Chiasson's made a few appearances now in Penguins practices this season, including as an extra third goaltender in practice on both Monday and Wednesday.
Mike Sullivan said after practice that the decision to include Chiasson as a third goaltender on days like today comes from wanting to manage the workload of his other goaltenders, Jarry and DeSmith. Beyond that, he's just a good guy to have around the team.
"Mike's a terrific guy," Sullivan said. "He's good friends with Sid, they have a long relationship. He's a real good goalie on top of that. I think our players like to have him on the ice. It gives us an opportunity sometimes if we want to manage the workloads of the goaltenders depending on the type of practice that we're going to run. So that's usually why we try to utilize him."
DeSmith appreciates the help.
"He's such a good guy and I love having him around," he told me. "It helps us out too because practices are pretty tough on the goalies. So he can take on some stuff, like if we need him to take some shootouts or stuff after practice. It just makes it easier on our bodies."
Chiasson, 36, hails from Crosby's hometown of Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia. The two were on the same Timbits team as children, and a five-year-old Crosby would sometimes make a phone call to the home of seven-year-old Chiasson to ask him to come outside and play street hockey.
Chiasson went on to play two years of junior hockey for the QMJHL's Rimouski Oceanic beginning in 2005-06, Crosby's first year in the NHL. Chiasson then played four seasons at Acadia University in Nova Scotia before hanging up the skates as being a full-time player.
Chiasson's main focus these days is teaching young goaltenders at the Lemieux Complex, but he's still a pretty good goaltender to have in practice. That was evident with some of the saves he made in the Penguins' post-practice shootout competition, including this one on Jake Guentzel:
He even robbed his childhood friend Crosby a couple of times.
"He's great," said Danton Heinen, another player in the shootout who was stopped by Chiasson more than once. "He's always down to step in there and face shots. It's good, he's always game to go in there and battle hard, and he's a good player, too. He's definitely not easy to score on."
Chiasson can sometimes be seen chatting with his fellow goaltenders before and after practice and between drills. Is he maybe getting some feedback, any tips from the two NHL goaltenders?
"Oh, no," DeSmith told me, shaking his head. "He doesn't need it."
Ideally, the Penguins won't ever need Chiasson to step into an NHL game for them. But if there's ever a time that he does get that call, the Penguins could certainly be in worse hands than his.
MORE FROM PRACTICE
• Kris Letang had a stroke on Monday that has him sidelined indefinitely. It is not expected to be career-threatening. Danny Shirey covered that, along with the updates from Sullivan and Ron Hextall, right here.
• The Penguins didn't announce the news on Letang until after locker room availability, so there wasn't an opportunity to speak with players about it. But in hindsight, the mood during practice and in the locker room after seemed pretty light, all things considered. I'm sure it was reassuring that Letang made sure to come to the game Tuesday and speak with the players himself afterward about what happened.
• Practice was on the shorter side, about half an hour. Around 20 minutes of that was devoted to work on the power play. The top unit without Letang remained Jeff Petry, Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Bryan Rust and Guentzel. The second unit was P.O Joseph, Rickard Rakell, Jeff Carter, Jason Zucker and Kasperi Kapanen.
• The first penalty-killing unit was Brock McGinn, Teddy Blueger, Dumoulin and Jan Rutta. The second unit was Chad Ruhwedel, Marcus Pettersson, Josh Archibald and Ryan Poehling.
• After the end of formal practice players had a high-stakes shootout competition, similar to Dan Bylsma-era Mustache Boy shootouts. The way these work is there's a goalie at either end of the ice, and players take turns attempting to score. If a player scores, he's out of the competition and goes to stand off to the side. The last man standing is the loser. It came down to Brian Dumoulin and Sidney Crosby as the final two, and Crosby scored to avoid the punishment. I asked DeSmith afterward what the consequence was for Dumoulin, and it's a pretty funny one.
"The person who loses has to wear gear for practice that we choose, so they're probably going to look pretty funny," DeSmith smiled.
Dumoulin has to face the consequence sometime in December -- not necessarily next practice -- so his teammates have some time to come up with something good.
It was a light-hearted drill, but it didn't feel so light-hearted for the players who were among the final few to not score, like Heinen.
"When you get to the last few it gets pretty nerve-wracking," he said. "You don't want to lose that."
• There were no five-on-five line rushes, so it's not clear if Heinen said will remain a healthy scratch for Thursday's game against the Golden Knights in favor of Kapanen or if he will re-enter the lineup. I asked Heinen about his reaction to the decision for Tuesday's game and what he needs to do to get back into the lineup.
"It's not fun," he said. "I think I can bring more to the table. I expect more of myself. It's frustrating, but it is what it is. You can't dwell on it, you just work hard and get back in."
• Blueger showed up to the practice mustache-less. He couldn't wait until the end of November to get rid of it.
