Johnson shines in dazzling performance against Leafs

CALGARY, AB -- Inside his six-foot blue semi-circle domicile, Chad Johnson is one cool customer.
A Steve McQueen-astride-a-classic-Triumph-motorcycle cool. The one-guy-you-want-close-by-in-a-pinch kinda cool.
There's a tranquility, a serenity about the Calgary Flames' homegrown goaltender in the workplace at the moment.
You know.
He knows.
And the guys trying to bust his door down are beginning to get the hint, too.
"That's always been sorta my thing,'' reasoned Johnson, 39 stops after posting his third shutout of the season, a 3-0 slapdown of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"I've always tried to be as calm and composed as possible.
"I mean, in my head, it's chaotic.
"But when I watch video, I'm not moving as much as I thought I was. That's my style, I guess.
"If you're too emotional, too high, too low, you're going to be inconsistent. And in this league is all about being consistent, especially when you're getting a lot of starts, which is nice.
"When you're playing every couple weeks you get a little jittery. You only get one chance in two weeks to prove yourself, establish something. When you're playing more, you're in a bit of a rhythm."
Selecting a particular gem among his showroom of diamond-brilliant saves on Wednesday would be difficult.

But most on hand at the Scotiabank Saddledome would undoubtedly track back to two and half minutes into Period 3. Leafs' freshman phenom Mitch Marner is sprung, in home free from the Calgary blueline.
Picking his spot, a fraction above the catching mitt, Marner releases his shot.
Like Brooks Robinson at the third flagging down a liner, Johnson outguesses his quarry, knocking he puck down and cooly smothering the leftovers.
"On that breakaway,'' marvelled Flames' assistant GM Craig Conroy afterwards, "watching from above, you're not feeling panicked. Not feeling your stomach tighten. Not feeling like 'Oh, no!'
"You're just thinking: 'Ah, he's going to save it.' And sure enough, he does.
"Nothing seems to fluster him. All the traffic, he doesn't seem bothered by it. He's aggressive but calm. On the ice, you can't tell whether he's up 10 or down 10. He has that balance good goalies have. Whatever the situation, he's like: 'I'm cruising. I'm good.'
"He maybe came in a little under the radar but people forget he had a great year last year (in Buffalo).
"He's playing unbelievable."
On another of Marner's credited five shots, a tip late on, Johnson preserved the shutout getting a glove/pad on the puck.
In that always-tricky first game home after an extended road trip, the Flames burst out of the gate, belying fatigue, giving their goaltender some house money to play with.
"I mean, that's huge,'' said Johnson. "We've been on the other side of that. We've been down two goals in the first period, three goals.
"It's hard.
"When you're up, playing with a lead, you have way more confidence. Still, you don't want to get too loose and maybe we did, at times. But you know if you make mistake you have a bit of a cushion."
In stark contrast to Johnson's unflappability, Leafs' starter Jhonas Enroth resembled a backwater rube frantically trying to hail a hack somewhere in midtown Manhattan on a Friday, 5 p.m., in the pouring rain.
Early on, as the homesteaders raced to a three-goal lead, he reacted to the puck if it was radioactive waste.
The last vestiges of George Canyon's booming rendition of O Canada had scarcely faded away when Freddie Hamilton cashed a Micheal Ferland pass: 19 seconds in.
Only a half minute later, on the dot, Sean Monahan shot off an odd-man rush, Enroth played the role of racquetball wall, Kris Versteeg pouncing on the succulent rebound like George Foreman on a grilled T-bone.
By period's end, the locals had bagged another, as Matt Stajan roofing a re-direct at the end of a superb three-way passing collaboration, ending a - Chiasson to Frolic to Stajan.
The rest they left up to Chad Johnson.

"He was fantastic,'' lauded Calgary coach Glen Gulutzan."We were a tired hockey club. They're in back-to-back, I understand that. But six in nine nights … coming back from New York, we were a tired club.
"I loved our start and then when you get a goaltending performance that Johnny gave us, it gives you chance.
"We were hanging on a little bit in the second and into the third, but he bailed us out."
The confidence exuded, that, rubs off on everyone.
"He's very structured in the net,'' critiqued Stajan. "If you come down, he almost just lets the puck hit him - his angles are so on.
"He's a big body in there. There's not much back-door reaction where he's trying to make the last-ditch save that you see from a smaller goalie.
"He's always in the right position. If we play the right way in front of him, take away the seam passes and back-door tap-ins, he's going to make that save for us. And it's brought a calmness to our game defensively."
When asked if this, at 30 years old, was his finest stretch of hockey at the Showtime level, Johnson - now sporting a splendid 8-4-1 record - shrugged.
"You mean personally, how I feel? No. How the results are going?
"I haven't had three shutouts before.
"But for me, the results matter but it's all about how I feel about the game."
Cool. Calm. Collected.
The king of his blue-tinged domain.
Taking a richly-deserved turn as first star - as he did Wednesday for putting the young, skilled, high-octane Leafs on lockdown - at the rink he grew up regarding as a sort of shrine has always been a dream for Chad Johnson.
"It's pretty crazy,'' he conceded. "I want to enjoy it all. I know how hard it is to get here.
"I remember the journey. I remember everything. So it's pretty surreal.
"It's all kind of a whirlwind right now. But I'll enjoy this tonight and re-focus for tomorrow."