Devan Dubnyk's family savors the moment of NHL All-Star trip

LOS ANGELES – If you were a hockey fanatic, the lobby at the JW Marriott at LA Live was a fun place to stalk Friday.

One person stood head and shoulders over everybody else, and it wasn't countless All-Stars like Sidney Crosby, P.K. Subban and Alex Ovechkin or legends Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr.

It was Dave Dubnyk, a dead ringer for kid brother Devan Dubnyk, well, if the 30-year-old Wild goaltender stood 6 feet 9 … out of his skates.

"I'm trying not to be a huge super fan because I know these guys get pestered, but I'm rubbernecking all over the place," Dave Dubnyk, 32, a die-hard Toronto Maple Leafs fan ("that's my character flaw"), said. "It's pretty cool to see Mario Lemieux and Connor McDavid. I haven't seen Auston Matthews … yet."

One of the best parts of Devan Dubnyk's ascent to being one of the NHL's top goalies the past few years is he has gotten to share special occasions with his family – wife, Jenn, sons Nate and Parker, parents Barb and Barry and Dave and sister Christianne.

They went to Las Vegas in 2015 when Dubnyk won the Masterton Trophy and was a Vezina Trophy runner-up, and Friday, they arrived for their second consecutive All-Star Game.

Barry was Devan's coach as a kid. Barry used to be a goalie, too, because he couldn't skate. So when Devan wanted to be a goalie, Barry said, "No way."

Finally, after much nagging from Devan, Barry compromised: Devan could play goal every other game.

Devan started the first game. The team won. Devan didn't start the second game. The team got beat, 16-1. Devan started every game from that point on.

"I was a competitive coach," Barry said, laughing. "They were 9. We had to win."

On Friday, on a patio in the sunshine outside that hotel lobby full of hockey star power, Devan's parents, brother and sister sat with the Star Tribune to talk about their beloved Devan, who ranks second in the NHL with 27 wins and leads the league with a 1.88 goals-against average and .936 save percentage for the Western Conference-leading Wild.

Q What has made Devan excel?

Barry: Mental strength is probably the biggest thing, especially in today's environment with all the social media and the amount of attention. I was an OK goalie, but mentally, I wasn't strong enough. He always says, there's nothing you can do when the puck's in the net. You just get ready for the next one. He says if you worry about the one that's gone in, you're going to let another one in.

Q Is it spooky to you that he can remember every goal scored against him?

Dave: Yes. And there were a lot of goals, too, in the Oilers days.

Q He's very un-goalie-like. He seems stress-free on game days, will shoot the breeze with reporters and teammates forever. Has he always been this laid back?

Dave: He's always had a lot of confidence. We moved around a lot when we were kids (Barry worked for IBM, so there were several moves), so we were always having to meet new friends.

Christianne (age 37): It's confidence with everything. It's just his personality. The combination of the two just puts him into special head space. I went to nine schools. Devan, six. Devan would just go to school and make friends his first day, which was super annoying. It just never occurred to him to be afraid of rejection. He'd just walk up to them and sit down and hang out and it never occurred to him that the person might not want to be friends.

Barb: He always thought he'd play in the NHL. We all did, actually. We just never doubted it. I don't think it ever crossed his mind that he wasn't going to make it. Whenever we'd move, the teams were always made up. So Devan would have to come and be better than everybody else, like much better, because otherwise nobody would notice him because they already had their mind set.

Q What was he like as a kid?

Barb: I always tell him if I would have had him first, we wouldn't have any other children. He was a very rambunctious child.

Barry: His first son, Nate, is full throttle. Devan's getting what he gave us where he just never quits.

Q I heard there was a lot of backyard wrestling?

Dave: We were pretty big nerds. We'd have big WWF productions with the curtains, belts and microphones and we'd hit each other with chairs.

Barb: I have some videos somewhere.

Dave: No, trust me, it's been destroyed.

Q How tough is it for a family of an NHL goalie?

Barb: We've had to really toughen up over the years. We used to get very upset, and we still do.

Dave: It's easier now that he's in Minnesota. When he was in Edmonton, I couldn't even look at Twitter.

Christianne: I banned myself.

Barry: When I look at tweets, I never read the comments on tweets, the people that troll. If he has a bad game, then you just stay off it for the day.

Q Dave, true you came to Calgary to watch the Maple Leafs play when the Wild was there, but not Devan, and that you haven't been to Minnesota?

Dave: I like watching him play goal on TV. I find it stressful watching him in person, especially in Calgary, because Flames fans are … hostile.

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The 2013-14 season was a nightmare for Dubnyk. He was traded from Edmonton to Nashville, where he played two subpar games and was eventually dealt to Montreal, where the Canadiens stuck him in American Hockey League Hamilton.

Q What was the lowest you saw Devan then?

Barb: When he was in Hamilton because he didn't communicate, so that's how I knew he was having a rough time. And you just don't know what to say to make him feel better. But we just kept saying, 'Devan, you didn't lose your talent. It's still there.' But he pretty much sequestered himself.

Barry: I'm an optimist. You always have faith and hope, but looking back at it, when you realize how fickle the league is, not just hockey, but sports in general, to be able to come back from it was something special.

Christianne: I had a conversation with him in Hamilton because like mom said, he was out of touch. And I called him. It was the only time I ever said it, but I just wanted to be clear, I said, 'You know you don't have to do this anymore. It's OK. That's not why people love you. If enough is enough, come home.' He said, 'No, I'm not done.' And as soon as he said that, I knew he would work his way back.

Q Still, how amazed are you that he took advantage of probably one last chance to get his career back on track in Arizona, then soared in Minnesota?

Barry: When you look at the year he went through from Edmonton to Nashville to Montreal, you couldn't have scripted a worse year. … It feels surreal lots of days. We sit back and say, 'Thank God he's in Minnesota.'

Q What has been the biggest thing you've had to get used to?

Barry: I'm still shocked to see Dubnyk jerseys. It's still hard to get used to.

Dave: It used to be that we'd see a Dubnyk jersey, we'd try to figure out if they were related to us or not. And, they always were.

Q How proud are you of him?

Barb: It's beyond description. This whole thing with Minnesota, it just keeps getting better. You just know that it's fleeting and you have to take it in and enjoy it as much as you possibly can. And I keep telling Devan that. Every time they win, I said, 'Enjoy this. Enjoy it, enjoy it, because it doesn't last forever.'