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South Xtra: Mt. Lebanon graduate enjoys memorable debut in hometown
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Mt. Lebanon native and Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Bartkowski, right, battles the Penguins' Matt Cooke for the puck in Monday night's game at the Consol Energy Center. Bartkowski made his NHL debut in the contest, which the Bruins won, 4-2.
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It was Andy Warhol who said everyone gets 15 minutes of fame; Matt Bartkowski's first nine minutes, 53 seconds of NHL fame came in the city in which he grew up.
Bartkowski, a 2006 Mt. Lebanon High School graduate, made his NHL debut Monday night for the Boston Bruins at Consol Energy Center in a 4-2 win against the Penguins.
The Bruins only play in Pittsburgh twice per year, so the odds of Bartkowski being recalled at the precise time he'd end up playing his first game here were less than 21/2 percent.
"I don't think it could have worked out any better," Bartkowski said. "It was awesome."
Bartkowski was able to say that -- and say it with a smile -- in the visitor's locker room after the game only because the Bruins scored four times in the final 3:23 to turn what was closing in on being a 2-0 loss into their second third-period comeback victory of the year at Consol Energy Center.
His NHL debut would have always remained unforgettable, but it wouldn't have been such a pleasant memory had it come in a loss.
"That wouldn't have been any fun," Bartkowski said. "So this is pretty special. We came back under [four] minutes; it was pretty cool. A special experience."
Bartkowski did not have a point but recorded a hit in being a minus-1 in 9:53 of ice time. He took a hooking penalty with 8:14 left in what was his final full shift, but the Bruins killed it off and the stage was set for the comeback.
Bartkowski, who was called up after Mark Stuart was placed on injured reserve, said he had jitters early on but felt more comfortable as the game went on.
"I thought he did well," Boston coach Claude Julien said. "His first real NHL game in his hometown, of all places, there's a lot of pressure. And I thought he handled himself well. A couple times he carried the puck up the ice when he had the space to do that, so I think we were pleased with his game tonight."
Julien eased Bartkowski into playing at the NHL level, limiting him to 12 shifts for his first game, roughly half of the average of the Bruins' other five defensemen that night.
Because of the limited number of shifts in his debut, Bartkowski didn't have a regular defense partner, working at times with perennial All-Star Zdeno Chara, veteran Dennis Seidenberg and former Penguin Andrew Ference.
As much as the talk about Bartkowski having grown up a Penguins fan meant, he would have come of age idolizing Mark Recchi, who is now his teammate.
Bartkowski, 22, would have been only 3 years old when Recchi was traded from the Penguins, months after helping lead them to their first Stanley Cup in 1991 (though Recchi did have two shorter stints in Pittsburgh in the mid 2000s).
A more likely new teammate Bartkowski would have been a fan of growing up is Ference. Ference played for the Penguins from 1999-03 -- roughly the time Bartkowski was in junior high school, a fact that made Bartkowski laugh after the game.
Bartkowski seemed to make a positive impression on teammates who are a decade or more older than him.
"It's not easy to play in this league, especially for a young guy and especially coming in with the first game being against Pittsburgh," Chara said. "That's a very skilled team. But he handled it really well.
"He played pretty solid minutes for his first game. He didn't panic with the puck. He's going to have to learn how to play certain situations, but overall I thought he was doing extremely well."
After the game and having not even had a chance to shower yet, Bartkowski said he hadn't yet been able to reflect on his initial NHL regular-season experience. Surely he'll always be able to look back on the whirlwind 24 hours that took him from playing for the Providence Bruins of the American Hockey League to facing Evgeni Malkin and the Penguins in Pittsburgh. He was sent back to Providence Tuesday after the victory against the Penguins.
"It was cool once I got the call," he said. "I talked to family and friends for a little, but then I started preparing like it was any other game, turned my phone off and that's about it."
Mt. Lebanon native and Boston Bruins defenseman Matt Bartkowski, right, battles the Penguins' Matt Cooke for the puck in Monday night's game at the Consol Energy Center. Bartkowski made his NHL debut in the contest, which the Bruins won, 4-2.
First Published January 13, 2011 12:00 am
