PITTSBURGH — The school bus drivers along Chemin Authier in Mont-St.-Hilaire, Quebec, knew Louis Domingue was not going to move his nets for them. There was a school at the end of the cul-de-sac, and in order for the legion of buses to get by Domingue’s nets, the drivers were forced to maneuver around them.

For almost a decade, as he played thousands of hours of street hockey on in-line skates there, they carefully avoided the nets.

In 2015, when he made his debut in the N.H.L. for the Arizona Coyotes, many of those bus drivers remembered the little boy on in-line skates. One morning, after Domingue’s second N.H.L. game, against the Canadiens in nearby Montreal, one of the drivers stopped his bus when he saw Domingue’s father, the filmmaker Charles Domingue, collecting his mail. The driver jumped down, and the two men shook hands.

“He congratulated me,” Charles Domingue recalled, “and he said, ‘Well, I guess he did the right thing when he wouldn’t move his nets for so many years.’ It was very nice. We were all on a cloud.”

The family is back on that cloud as Louis Domingue has become the sensation of the Stanley Cup playoffs. A 30-year-old journeyman goalie who has spent more time in the minor leagues than in the N.H.L., he has emerged as a cult hero in Pittsburgh, where he has played only two regular-season games.

Some goalies are known for their lightning-quick glove hands, others for their puck-handling and a few for their intriguing mask designs. But heading into the 2022 playoffs, Domingue was not known for much at all.

Now, he is best known for eating spicy pork and broccoli during a game — and also coming off the bench to register Pittsburgh’s two wins in their first-round playoff series against the Rangers. On Saturday, he heard chants of “Lou-eeee! Lou-eeee!” ringing out from most of the 18,000 fans during the Penguins’ 7-4 win in Game 3.

“The crowd really kept me in this game tonight,” Domingue said.

Domingue signed a one-year, two-way contract in September, and he was promptly sent to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, Pittsburgh’s American Hockey League affiliate. When Tristan Jarry, the Penguins’ starting goaltender, broke a foot, Domingue was called up to back up Casey DeSmith in the playoffs and be the backup to the backup.

Even in a hectic Game 1 against the Rangers, which had three overtimes and was the longest N.H.L. game played in the current Madison Square Garden, Domingue never thought he would play. So, feeling a bit peckish after the first overtime, he scarfed down a plate of spicy pork and broccoli.

“Not the best,” he admitted after the game, presumably referring to his decision to eat a heavy meal, not to the quality of the food.

But DeSmith suffered a muscle injury and would later be ruled out for the rest of the playoffs. (He underwent core surgery Friday.) Domingue, still digesting, was sent into a heated and hostile environment in the middle of the second overtime, where one mistake could have doomed the Penguins.

But that mistake never came. He saved all 17 shots that came his way, keeping Pittsburgh alive until Evgeni Malkin scored the game-winning goal.

In Game 2, Domingue was not as crisp. He allowed five goals in the Rangers’ victory, which evened the series. Still, the fans of Pittsburgh maintained their crush on their newest hockey hero, and the legend of the spicy pork and broccoli grew.

The dish was served in the media dining room at the arena before Game 3 in Pittsburgh, and, according to DK Pittsburgh Sports, one concession stand added it to its menu before Game 3.

“It’s funny because he is a great cook,” said Brigitte Boileau, Domingue’s mother. “When he was young, he did not know anything about cooking, but when you leave home at 15 to play hockey, you have to learn.”

His first foray into cooking entailed dumping a wad of uncooked spaghetti into cold water and watching it turn to cement. But he did learn, and eventually wrote a cookbook, “Baking Goals,” which is focused on home baking and offers the family recipes he learned from Boileau and her mother. The proceeds benefit autism research, Boileau said.

Domingue got a late start at goalie. He was 8, his father said, when he began at the position, which is over the hill for many aspiring Quebec netminders. But the family spent their summers in Gloucester, Mass., a seaside town with a strong arts community, instead of watching Louis in goalie lessons in rinks around Quebec. Boileau is an art teacher, and Charles Domingue, in addition to being a filmmaker, was an excellent goalie in school. He helped Louis learn to play, and to love, the position, shuttling his son to early-morning practices and taking him on road trips near and far.

“It’s not easy for the parents of the goalies,” Charles Domingue said. “There is so much pressure on them. I would watch other fathers, and they are drinking beer, buying T-shirts, having fun. The father of the goalie, it’s not the same. One mistake, and everyone is upset.”

Louis was also a terrific baseball player, but when he was around 14, he made the decision to focus on hockey, and he powered through the junior ranks as a prospect. His favorite player, perhaps appropriately, was not the Canadiens’ star goalie, José Théodore, but Jeff Hackett, their backup.

Domingue was selected by the Coyotes in the fifth round of the 2010 draft, but for the next several years he bounced between the A.H.L. and the N.H.L., playing for six teams, passing through waivers several times. But he refused to give up.

“You know, he loves cats,” his mother said. “And he has nine lives.”

Playing for Tampa Bay in 2019, Domingue set the team record for most consecutive wins by a goalie, with 11, but the Lightning had Andrei Vasilevskiy, one of the best goalies in the world, and Domingue was waived the next September. He has played on four teams since.

When Domingue made the Penguins’ playoff roster this year, his parents were delighted. But they understood the life of a backup and did not expect him to play. That is why, when the second overtime period of Game 1 began, they were in bed. How could they be blamed? At roughly the same time, their son was chowing down on spicy pork.

They were asleep and unaware that their cellphones downstairs were pinging with text messages and calls. Then their landline rang. It was Charlotte, Louis’s sister, urging her parents to wake up and watch.

“I was so nervous,” Boileau said. “I was watching with my hands over my eyes, peaking between two fingers. It was incredible.”

Domingue won that game and also Game 3 as the Penguins took a 2-1 series lead, but his status going forward remains uncertain. Game 4 is Monday night in Pittsburgh. Jarry has been practicing and could get the call again. Or the job could be Domingue’s for as long as Pittsburgh stays alive, allowing him to recreate the dreams he fashioned on Chemin Authier, as all those buses steered around him.

“From the moment I brought my net outside on the street with my Rollerblades and had cars go around my net, this was the film I had playing in my head the whole time,” Domingue said, adding: “I’m trying to control my emotions. It’s pretty hard, to be honest. It’s so new, and it’s a lot.”