Blackhawks goalie Darling's long, strange hockey journey far from over
It's going to take a lot more than two rough periods to get Scott Darling down.
The quick-as-a-cat goalie from Lemont has been through way too much to get where he is now to start walking around with his shoulders slumped after allowing 6 goals to Nashville at the end of Game 5 and the first period of Game 6 last week.
“We get scored on all the time,” Darling said. “It's part of the business. You lose games (and) sometimes you have games that are nightmares. But you've just got to keep going. It's part of the gig.”
Yes, Corey Crawford will be in net when the Blackhawks begin their second-round series against the Minnesota Wild Friday night at the United Center. But it was Darling, all 6-feet-5 of him, who was a huge reason why the Hawks advanced, even if his path to grabbing the hearts of fans was one of the longest and strangest you've ever heard.
From the top
Scott played hockey since he was 4 years old, almost always wearing pads.
“(He) wanted to be in the net and we never got him out of it,” said his mom, Cindy, laughing.
From the outset, Cindy said, he was on the ice with older kids, a second-grader manning the net in a game with almost all fifth graders.
As time went on, though, Scott started playing with kids his own age and was eventually living away from home during his high school years. His parents would come and watch the games on the weekend, but Cindy said she had no idea her son had a drinking problem until Scott was in college at Maine.
“He started being late for hockey practice and his coach was like, 'That's not like him,'” she said. “Things started creeping up while he was on the team. Not a lot things. He never broke any law or anything. It was more a team rule.”
Leaving Maine after his sophomore year, Scott was hoping to catch on with the Arizona Coyotes, who drafted him in the sixth round in 2007. But after being sent to Arizona's ECHL team in Las Vegas, he hit rock bottom by allowing 3.83 goals a game with the Louisiana Icegators of the SPHL in 2010-11.
At season's end, he was cut loose and facing a dead end.
An epiphany
July 1, 2011 is a date Darling will always remember. That's when he came to grips with his drinking issues and decided enough was enough.
“I realized how far I'd fallen in such a short period of time going from a top college prospect to jobless, no degree, didn't make anything out of my college career,” Darling said. “(I had) no bright spots in the near future.
“I just had a moment and I said, 'That's it. I'm done.' I've been trying to build myself up ever since.”
It wasn't an easy ascent.
It began with the help of Brian Daccord, a former goaltending coach for the Boston Bruins who has worked with Scott for more than a decade. Scott reached out to one of Daccord's camp directors that summer, asking if he could return even though Daccord had told Scott he wasn't welcome anymore.
“My first reaction was no, but I've learned one thing in coaching and that is it's OK to take a hard line with someone,” Daccord said. “I think it's beneficial.
“But I've also learned that if a player wants to vindicate himself, you've got to give him an avenue to do that.”
So Daccord put Darling to work, paying him $15 an hour while working with the college kids and making him speak to the 14- to 18-year-old campers about making good choices.
“He did that,” Daccord said. “He was really good.”
After keeping his nose clean and dedicating himself on the ice, he made the improvements necessary that led to Daccord to make a recommendation that would change the young goalie's life forever.
Movin' on up
Darling spent the 2012-13 season with the ECHL's Wheeling Nailers. Daccord then got a call from Mitch Korn, the goalie coach for the Predators who was looking for a fifth goalie in the team's system. Korn had two goalies on his radar, and that's when Daccord recommended Darling and sent Korn a YouTube clip after a practice session.
Intrigued, Korn did some research, met Scott and signed him last season to an AHL/ECHL contract. When Pekka Rinne suffered an injury, Darling was called up by Milwaukee, where he posted a .933 save percentage in 26 games.
Then the Blackhawks called and signed him to a one-year deal.
“When they contacted me I was through the roof,” Darling said. “Where do I sign?”
He leapfrogged Michael Leighton in Rockford, Corey Crawford injured himself at the House of Blues, and suddenly Darling was being called up to the big club for a short stint in October. He came back for four more games in December, continued to impress in Rockford, and on Feb. 22, he signed a 2-year extension with the Hawks.
He played in seven more regular-season games before the postseason began, at which point most backup goaltenders figure it's time to sit back and watch the starter guide the team through the arduous postseason.
Twenty minutes into Game 1 against Nashville, though, this story took another turn.
Round 1 hero
“I'm like, 'Oh my God they just put him in,'” Cindy Darling said of her reaction during the series opener. “And everybody's like, 'It's going to be fine.' I said, 'I know it's going to be fine, but I was not prepared for him to be in right now.'”
Clearly, though, Scott was. He stopped 42 Nashville shots and the Hawks prevailed 4-3 in double overtime. The Hawks mobbed Darling, with Crawford one of the first to congratulate him.
Crawford was back in net for Game 2, but he allowed 6 goals and coach Joel Quenneville reinserted Darling. Overall, he stopped 147 of 152 shots Nashville threw at him before hiccups in Games 5 and 6 led to Crawford's return.
'Surreal'
The Darling family is thrilled their son, brother and grandson plays for the Hawks, even if Cindy admits “it's surreal.”
“My dad is the one who took us to Hawks games when we were little,” Cindy said, “and he had never been to a playoff game. He had tears in his eyes.
“He said, 'I can't believe I'm at a playoff game and my grandson's in the net. You guys did good.'
And I'm like, 'Thanks, Dad.'”
Before each game, the goalie stands alone during the national anthem, in front of the net he is paid to protect. Darling had a lot on his mind in those moments last week.
“I like to think about all the rinks and banners and national anthems I've been (a part of) that led me to the United Center,” he said. “That's something that I usually do, especially during the home games. … It reminds you of where you came from, what it took, and reminds you to make the most of it.”
He's certainly doing that and is likely inspiring quite a few people along the way.