ST. LOUIS -- Joseph O'Brien served as the emergency backup goalie for the Dallas Stars in a 4-3 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Saturday.
The 28-year-old backed up Scott Wedgewood after Jake Oettinger was unavailable following a lower-body injury he sustained in the first period of a 5-4 win against the Ottawa Senators on Friday.
Wedgewood made 30 saves in the loss Saturday.
Due to NHL salary cap constraints, the Stars were unable to recall a goalie from Texas of the American Hockey League, so they called on O'Brien, who played college hockey at Niagara University (2015-19) and was part of the St. Louis AAA Blues U-16 and U-18 programs; one of his coaches was Al MacInnis, Blues senior adviser to general manager Doug Armstrong.
He was 3-11-2 with a 4.07 goals-against average and .876 save percentage in 26 games through four seasons at Niagara, located in Lewiston, New York.
"I was fortunate enough to play at Niagara for four years, which was a great experience," O'Brien said. "I learned a lot. It was probably the best four years. I kind of played my whole life trying to get to that point. To be able to do it and get a good education out of it, I was very content with that. After that, I was ready to move back home."
O'Brien, who is from Clayton, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, was working at his family restaurant, OB Clark in Brentwood, Missouri, when he got a text from Blues assistant general manager Ryan Miller explaining the situation with the Stars.
"You never like to see something like this kind of occur," O'Brien said. "I was setting the games (on televisions) at the restaurant last night and I put the Stars game on and it was right when Oettinger was going off the ice with something, and I really didn't even put two and two together with him coming to St. Louis the next night.
"I was downstairs changing kegs, and I got a text from Blues assistant GM Ryan Miller saying, 'Hey, here's the situation. We'll just kind of keep you updated. They'll probably need you for the morning skate. From there, we'll kind of see,' and after that, got a phone call from Dallas' assistant GM and I just had to kind of be here and we'll kind of take it from there."
O'Brien, who signed an amateur tryout agreement with Dallas, has been an EBUG for three seasons.
"Knock on wood, nothing crazy," he said of the experience. "I think the closest (time getting into a game) was when the Blues were playing [the] Colorado [Avalanche] in the (Western Conference Second Round in 2022) when [Jordan] Binnington went out with the knee injury (in Game 3).
"That was kind of a whirlwind of things. I had to come down and get suited up for that, just kind of sit there and count minutes, which has never been longer. You just try to count down to the five-minute intervals. ... I came down in the coach's room and I just put on half of my gear, and I watched the game from the video coach's office. Sitting there not really knowing what to expect."
O'Brien was also on call when the Stars were in St. Louis last season, when Oettinger had a stomach virus.
"That was just, 'Hey, be aware,'" O'Brien said. "'We don't know what's going to happen. He's in the building. If something happens, we're going to have to decide from there.' It was always a last-minute things. It was never knowing the next day that you're going to be there."
O'Brien said he was just going to soak up as much experience as he could and enjoy whatever happened.
"It's definitely very surreal," O'Brien said. "Just getting to come down and get on the ice and work with their goalie coach [Jeff Reese], who was excellent. I'm just kind of taking it all in and to be around professionals, just try to take it all in, enjoy it and mostly stay out of the way.”
