Editor's Note: Sheng Peng will be a regular contributor to NBC Sports California’s Sharks coverage. You can read more of his coverage on San Jose Hockey Now, listen to him on the San Jose Hockey Now Podcast, and follow him on Twitter at @Sheng_Peng
CHICAGO – Evgeni Nabokov has been teaching Devin Cooley the tricks of a trade for a long time – Nabokov just didn’t know it.
The 26-year-old goaltender, acquired by the Sharks from the Buffalo Sabres for a 2025 seventh-round pick last week, will make his NHL debut Sunday against the Chicago Blackhawks.
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The Los Gatos native will become the second Jr. Sharks player, following Matt Tennyson, to play for San Jose, and the first goalie. Cooley graduated from Los Gatos High School and played for the Jr. Sharks until 2015.
According to Cooley, he was about 10 when he first met Nabokov, then the Sharks’ starting goalie. Since he was a baby, Cooley’s family had Sharks season tickets, so naturally, Nabokov was the youngster’s favorite netminder ... along with another more surprising keeper. But first, Nabokov.
“We got to skip dryland [off-ice exercises] one time because we got to go into the Sharks locker room. I remember Nabby showed us how to break in our gloves,” Cooley told San Jose Hockey Now with his easy smile on Friday. “That was our excuse to skip workout. So that was a pretty cool moment.”
Cooley says he spoke with Nabokov a few times in those formative years, but not since then. After leaving the Jr. Sharks program in 2015, Cooley would star for the University of Denver from 2017 to 2020, signing with the Nashville Predators after his junior season. He played for the AHL’s Chicago Wolves, Milwaukee Admirals, and Rochester Americans, before finding his way back home.
San Jose Sharks
And reuniting with his childhood hero, now the Sharks director of goaltending.
“I spoke to him really briefly when I first got to San Jose, just shook his hand,” he said. “It's been a long time. I don't even know if he remembers me.”
Most importantly though, Cooley remembered. It’s no exaggeration to say that Nabokov and the Sharks changed the trajectory of his life.
When Cooley was five, his mother Heynia took his older brother, Ryan, to a Cub Scout skating event in Palo Alto. Devin was too young to be left at home alone, so he came with.
“I put on skates for the first time and skating was just like really easy for me. I just picked it up right away,” Cooley recalled. “My parents saw it, like wow, he's really good at skating. We gotta get into something like figure skating, hockey, something. They had no idea that there was even like a hockey program.”
Scott and Heynia Cooley did some research and discovered the Jr. Sharks program.
By the time Cooley was eight, he knew that he was a goaltender. At around the same time, “Miracle”, the story of the 1980 USA Olympic men’s ice hockey gold medalists had hit the silver screen.
That’s how Cooley, more than two decades removed from the events portrayed in the film, was introduced to Team USA goaltending hero Jim Craig.
“In California, you don't really have the outdoor rink, so you can't really go practice by yourself. But what we had growing up was a little street hockey area,” Cooley said. “So every single day, I would watch the movie ‘Miracle’. Then I'd get all fired up and all motivated and I’d go outside and practice street hockey by myself or with my brothers.”
Besides Ryan, Devin has a younger brother Brandon.
“It was always me playing goalie and then my little brother on my team. My older brother was always way better than my little brother, so there'd be a million shots, but that's why we would have the goalie,” he smiled. “We'd be out there like 5, 10 hours a day. Morning until night, just playing street hockey and having a good time.”
Scott could see Devin’s passion for goaltending.
“Eventually, my dad actually built a synthetic ice rink in our yard because we were out there so long. Just the most California thing, right?” Cooley laughed. “He got like a puck machine too. So I could work on my hands. Practice by myself.”
Cooley’s family, naturally, will converge on the United Center tonight. His grandfather also should be there, his girlfriend and her family too, to see Cooley play for the Sharks.
All this still is unbelievable for Cooley, who still jokingly blames his and Ryan’s mere presence in the SAP Center nosebleeds for Game Four of the 2016 Stanley Cup Final for the Sharks’ 3-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. That’s both Cooley’s best and worst Sharks fan memory.
“I'm gonna be staying at my dad's house and doing that same drive that I did when I was in youth for however many years. He’s at the same house we grew up in,” Cooley said about the trip from Los Gatos to Sharks Ice.
For the Sharks and Jr. Sharks though, Cooley’s story is very believable, part of the larger plan when the Sharks dropped the puck in 1991-92, to get the Bay Area to fall in love with hockey.
Cooley is living proof, through the Sharks’ good years and bad years, that it’s worked.