Zizing ’Em Up: Pietrangelo reflects on daughter’s recovery from illness

NHL.com staff writer Mike Zeisberger has been covering the NHL regularly since 1999. Each Sunday he will use his extensive networks of hockey contacts to write his weekly notes column, “Zizing 'Em Up.”

TORONTO -- When Alex Pietrangelo comes home from work and gets a hug, it is the best Christmas present he could get.

Because the heartfelt embrace comes from his daughter Evelyn, a gift the Vegas Golden Knights defenseman and wife Jayne celebrate every single day.

“She’s a little fighter, and she’s gone through a lot,” Pietrangelo told NHL.com “So we’re just blessed that it came out the way that it did and that we have our little girl back.”

Sunday marks the one-year anniversary since Pietrangelo returned to the Golden Knights after a nine-game absence to deal with the life-threatening health issue that had suddenly and ruthlessly overtaken Evelyn, who is 5.

It was Dec. 17, 2022, when Pietrangelo revealed to the world how sick his daughter had been prior to her recovery and how it had made him contemplate retirement from the game he loved.

“Looking back, it’s been such an emotional year,” Pietrangelo said. “At one point, you’re willing to give up your career, you are willing to give up everything, just to be there for her.

“And then she gets better. And she’s on the ice with me when we win the Stanley Cup. And then she gets to celebrate with us when I got my day with the Cup in the summer.

Pietrangelo says Evelyn is not 100 percent yet but is showing dramatic improvement.

“She talks, she sings, she laughs,” he said. “She gives us so much to be thankful for. Just having her around at Thanksgiving, well, it was so great considering what happened a year earlier.”

Last Thanksgiving, Evelyn caught the flu -- or so the family thought. Unfortunately, it quickly turned into encephalitis, a type of brain lesion that stripped her of her motor skills and practically paralyzed Evelyn for several days.

“You think about it now and you see things so differently,” he said. “You’re so grateful she recovered. She’s healthy again and that’s more important than anything.

“It’s tough not to blend life and work together but it was kind of nice to have her around at the end of the season, to share the Stanley Cup win together, to share the experience of having it at home together.”

When the Golden Knights won the Cup in June, Evelyn celebrated in the arms of her father. One month later, when the trophy came to the family home in the St. Louis area, she and fellow triplets, Theodore and Oliver, joined their 3-year-old sister Julia, to eat breakfast cereal out of it.

It’s like life is back to normal. Not quite. But almost.

“The main thing that matters to all of us right now: she’s better,” Pietrangelo said.

With his family life stable again, it allows Pietrangelo to enjoy the success the Golden Knights are having in their bid to repeat. Vegas (20-6-5) has an NHL-high 45 points.

“We don’t want to be known as just a one-off championship team,” he said. “All in all, things are good.”

Both at the rink and with his family. What a difference a year makes.

NET GAINS

One day after Roberto Luongo watched his name added to the Ring of Honor for the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena on Thursday, fellow Hall of Fame goalie Martin Brodeur said it was a well-deserved acknowledgement for his former neighbor.

Wait a minute. Neighbor?

“There was a street behind our house where I grew up and there was a school on the other side,” Brodeur said Friday. “I’m pretty sure he grew up on the other side of the school. Given what we both went on to achieve, it’s pretty ironic, isn’t it?”

It’s certainly impressive for a couple of guys from the same ‘hood.

Brodeur and Luongo spent their childhoods in St. Leonard, Quebec, a borough northwest of downtown Montreal with a prominent Italian population. They never played minor hockey against each other, since Brodeur, 51, is six years older than Luongo, but each had a stint with the same Midget AAA team, Montreal-Bourassa of the QAAA, during their respective journeys to the NHL.

Today, St. Leonard has arenas named after each goalie. In fact, Arena Martin Brodeur is just 1.5 miles from the Arena Roberto Luongo.

“Pretty amazing when you think about it,” Brodeur said with a chuckle.

It doesn’t end there.

Consider this:

Brodeur is first all-time in games played by an NHL goalie (1,266); Luongo second (1,014).

No one in NHL history faced more shots than Brodeur (31,709). Once again, Luongo is second on that list (30,924).

Brodeur is the all-time wins leader with 691, followed by fellow French-Canadians Patrick Roy (551), Marc-Andre Fleury (548) and Luongo (489).

“We take a lot of pride in that, all of us being from the province of Quebec,” Brodeur said. “And it was cool when Roberto and I were on the gold medal-winning team together with Canada at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Two kids from the same area.”

When it comes to NHL goaltending, the power base has shifted. What once was considered a strength for Canada during the stretch of Roy, Brodeur, Luongo and Carey Price, has now turned into a position Brodeur says lacks depth.

Instead, he says, the United States and Russia have the deeper crops of goalies.

“For the U.S. you have Thatcher Demko, Jake Oettinger, Connor Hellebuyck, even Jeremy Swayman,” Brodeur said. “Russian goalies, I mean, there’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, Ilya Sorokin, Igor Shesterkin, Sergei Bobrovsky.

“Canadians? I like Adin Hill with Vegas, Jordan Binnington in St. Louis. Like I said, we just don’t have the depth there right now.”

Which makes the tale of the two Hall of Fame goalies from St. Leonard more surreal.

‘STAMMER’ TIME

The first four-goal performance by Steven Stamkos in the NHL, when the Tampa Bay Lightning skated to a 7-4 road victory against the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday was impressive.

The Oilers came in on an eight-game winning streak, so the Lightning knew they needed to step up their game. Stamkos did just that, scoring his 200th power-play goal while leading the offense.

At the same time, the Lightning captain had extra, albeit sad, motivation. And it was there for all to see when he broke down during a postgame interview.

“Excuse me if I get emotional here but I had a good friend pass away recently, Paul Giallonardo,” Stamkos said, adding that when it came to his career night, “I’d like to think he had something to do with that.

“To the Giallonardo family, I love you guys. Paul was looking down on me tonight.”

Paul Giallonardo was from Unionville, Ontario, the same community where Stamkos was raised. He played defense with Windsor of the Ontario Hockey League from 2001-05 where one of his coaches was D.J. Smith, now with the Ottawa Senators.

Giallonardo died from brain cancer Dec. 10. He was 39.

Smith led off one of his press conferences last week by noting that even though Hockey Fights Cancer month ended in November, the fight continues every day. The Senators coach passed on condolences to the Giallonardo family and noted how the hockey world was such a tight community, as evidenced by the way it rallied around Paul’s loved ones.

That included Stamkos.

“Just a really close family friend, someone I really looked up to as a kid, watched him play hockey growing up, he was a few years older than me," Stamkos said. "A quality person, an unbelievable family that supported me through my career.”

Steven’s father Chris attended the memorial for Paul on Friday. So, too, did the family of Joe Bowen, the radio announcer for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Smith was right. The hockey world, at its core, is very much a close-knit fraternity.

RIP, Paul.

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

“No, no, he's a good coach!"

— Luongo reacting to the fans at Rogers Arena during his Ring of Honor induction ceremony Tuesday when fans booed the mention of John Tortorella, one of Luongo’s coaches in Vancouver. You never know where you’ll find an ally of ‘Torts.’

THE SUNDAY LIST

Sticking with the Luongo theme, here’s a personal look at some of the more humorous moments from ‘Bobby Lou’, some of which still have us chuckling.

1. The Bathroom Break: In Game 5 of the 2007 Stanley Cup Playoff second-round series between the Canucks and Anaheim Ducks, overtime started with the teams tied 1-1 and Luongo was nowhere to be found. Backup Dany Sabourin played the first 3:34 of OT before Luongo emerged and resumed his duties in the crease. It was later revealed that he’d had “a little bit of a bellyache” and was dealing with it in the dressing room bathroom. When you’ve got to go, well, you know.

2. More Bathroom Babble: Prior to the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Luongo played against the Maple Leafs in Toronto before being scheduled to head to Russia to join Team Canada. While Canada hadn’t yet played, the Olympics had started and Luongo had seen photos on social media of the less-than-ideal accommodations for some people there, including the bathrooms. Asked after the game what he was most intrigued about regarding Sochi, he replied: “Judging by the pics I’ve seen, the toilets,” before breaking into laughter.

3. The Alter Ego: When the character ‘Strombone1’ started showing up on social media, pretty much everyone knew it was Luongo using a pseudo-name even though he wouldn’t acknowledge it. It would become one of the most entertaining platforms we’ve seen from an athlete. One of the best came June 26, 2019, when a photo of goalie pads and a pair of sneakers hanging from a clothes line was accompanied by the words: “I’ve decided to take my talents to a South Beach retirement home.” One of the best retirement announcements of all time.