Joe Cannata has bounced around in the minor leagues ever since he graduated from Merrimack College in 2012.
This past season was no exception for the 28-year-old goaltender, but it ended differently than any other one. At its conclusion, Cannata was a champion, winning the Kelly Cup as a member of the ECHL’s Colorado Eagles, who won the title for the second consecutive season.
“This year was a big step for my career,” said Cannata, a Wakefield, Mass., native. “To go through those two months in the playoffs and come out as a champion is amazing. It’s a great accomplishment to win at the pro level. We had a great group of guys this year. Several of them came back after winning it last year, and that helped a lot.”
Selected in the sixth round, 173rd overall, by the Vancouver Canucks in the 2009 National Hockey League draft, Cannata, 6-1, 205 pounds, has played in the American Hockey League for the Chicago Wolves, Utica Comets, San Antonio Rampage and Hershey Bears. He’s also skated with the Kalamazoo Wings, Ontario Reign and South Carolina Stingrays in the ECHL.
Despite toiling in the minors and never appearing in an NHL game since the end of his four-year college career, Cannata cherishes being able to play the ice game at the professional level.
“There are people who don’t get to live out their dream, which is to play in the NHL,” he said. “As a hockey player, this is the next best thing to the NHL. I’m trying to enjoy it. I’ve been lucky enough to play in good places with good fan bases.”
Another positive for Cannata has been that his signature has been on NHL contracts throughout his professional career, and he hasn’t had to sign an AHL or ECHL deal to remain in the game.
He inked a two-year, entry-level contract with the Canucks and twice re-signed for one year. After four-plus seasons in their system, he joined the Washington Capitals as an unrestricted free agent for the 2016-17 campaign. In March of that season, the Capitals dealt him to the Colorado Avalanche, whom he re-signed with for one season after he hit the open market last July.
“It’s a confidence booster to have an NHL deal every year,” Cannata said. “You feel wanted by an NHL organization. In November I got to go to Sweden (for the NHL Global Series). If I wasn’t on an NHL deal, I wouldn’t have been able to go. Being around the NHL guys day to day, seeing how hard they work and hanging out with them off the ice, is really cool. I’ve also been lucky enough to work with some really cool people in the goalie world such as Dan Cloutier, Roland Melanson, Mitch Korn and Olie Kolzig, and I could keep going down the line.”
Cannata primarily played for the Eagles during the 2017-18 season, finishing with a stellar 21-5-2 record, 2.22 goals-against average, .931 save percentage and two shutouts in 28 games played.
“We had an amazing team in Colorado,” Cannata explained. “We had a lot of great players from top to bottom, which helps your numbers shine. For me, I wanted to prove that I’m one of the best goalies in the ECHL, and I had a mindset of taking it game by game and having a good game every time I was given a start.”
He also appeared in five games with the Rampage, going 3-0-2 with a 1.84 GAA, .920 save percentage and one shutout.
“With San Antonio, I wanted to establish that I could be an AHL goalie again,” Cannata said. “I wanted to stay consistent and show the organization that I belong there.”
Cannata entered the Kelly Cup playoffs poised to reverse the dreadful fate that he suffered in the 2015 postseason when he was with Ontario. That spring, he started the first two games of the playoffs before spraining a medial collateral ligament, which sidelined him through the end of the second round. He returned for Game 1 of the Western Conference finals against the Allen Americans as the backup, but later entered the game, which the Reign lost, in relief. He proceeded to start the next six games, winning the first three before losing the latter three.
The series loss was crushing for Cannata, but it provided him with valuable lessons he was able to utilize en route to the title this postseason, when he appeared in all 24 postseason contests and finished with a 16-7 record, 2.55 GAA, .913 save percentage and two shutouts.
“You can’t be complacent,” Cannata stated. “You really have to take it game by game. The hardest game to win is that fourth game against a team that will end its season. Having that experience, being up three games to one, you can’t let your foot off the gas. Every little detail is so important. As a goalie, it’s about keeping your team in it.”
He did just that nearly every step of the way this time around, especially in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals against the visiting Fort Wayne Komets when the Eagles fell behind 3-1 with 11:58 left in the third period.
Said Cannata: “As much as you think your season is over and how hard this will be to come back from, you can’t let in another goal because a three-goal lead is much harder to overcome.”
He shut the door, and the Eagles, who eliminated the Wichita Thunder in six games and then swept the Idaho Steelheads to reach the third round, stormed back to win 4-3 in overtime.
As memorable as that moment was, Cannata and the Eagles saved the best for last.
After falling behind three games to two in the Kelly Cup finals to the regular-season champion Florida Everblades, Colorado faced a pair of do-or-die situations. The Eagles defended home ice in Game 6, winning 4-2. In the winner-take-all Game 7 in Florida, the Eagles scored two goals in the third period to rally from a one-goal deficit and win 3-2.
Finally getting over the hump and emerging victorious at the end of a playoff run was a feeling Cannata will never forget, especially since he came agonizingly close to a championship once before. In his junior season with Merrimack, he was in net when the Warriors lost to Boston College 5-3 in the Hockey East championship game.
“You go all year, and it comes down to one final game,” Cannata concluded. “You play street hockey as a kid making up that you’re in Game 7. To come out victorious, for us to actually to do it, is a great way to win it.”
