There are two specific rituals in the NHL that lets everyone know who the starting goalie is on a given day. One of them is leaving the ice first in the morning, the second is getting on the ice first in the evening.



To understand fully to what extent Cayden Primeau is going through something somewhat unexpected, getting his first NHL win less than 30 months after being selected with the No. 199 pick in the 2017 NHL Draft, let’s take a look at those two rituals.



The first came last week, on Dec. 5, the morning of Primeau’s NHL debut against the high-powered Colorado Avalanche. As the morning skate was wrapping up, as Carey Price began doing all the drills the backup normally does, special teams work, stuff like that, Primeau was hovering around the neutral zone. He skated around, dropped to his knees to stretch a bit, his Laval Rocket teammate Charles Hudon came by to give his mask an encouraging rub, but Primeau was basically killing...