Prior to puck-drop a week ago in Anaheim, Pierre-Olivier Joseph's phone buzzed. The 23-year-old Penguins defenseman could have guessed what the message said.
The gist of it: "Have fun. Keep smiling. And play for the passion of the game."
P.O.'s parents, Frantzi Joseph and France Taillon, have sent him pregame notes like that for years. Same with his brother Mathieu, a forward for Ottawa.
Pierre-Olivier flashed that familiar grin, tucked his phone into his snazzy suit and went out and played perhaps the finest game of his young NHL career.
In the first period of a 6-3 win over the Anaheim Ducks, Joseph assertively shifted into the high slot, pulled in a pass and whipped a wrist shot past John Gibson. He saw another opportunity to hop into the offensive fray after Evgeni Malkin grabbed a loose puck. Joseph patiently picked his spot and scored again.
That gave Joseph his first multi-goal game. His three points also tied a career high. He beamed as his Penguins teammates swallowed him up in celebration.
Watching on TV across the continent, Frantzi and France cheered with him.
"We're just embracing the journey that he's having and he's giving us," France said the following morning, as they pulled into Ottawa to watch Mathieu play. "P.O. is doing it by himself, being resilient and just because he loves the game so much. So that smile, that shows the way he is embracing life in general."
Talk to anyone who has spent a little time around Pierre-Olivier during his rise to the NHL, and they will tell you there is rarely a bad day in P.O.'s world.
That easy grin and infectious energy have been defining characteristics for Joseph, whether he was battling his brother on the backyard rink in Montreal, shrugging off racial prejudice or finding his way to Pittsburgh, where he has become an everyday NHL player and an important voice in the Penguins' diversity initiatives.
The grace with which he carries himself on and off the ice? The lanky lefty credits his parents, with an assist from his big brother, for showing him the way.
"It was just part of our values," he said. "We grew up being happy with everything and wanting to be positive as much as possible. There's a classic saying that you only live once, so you better maximize everything you do. So I go by that. What is there to be unhappy about when you're playing hockey for a living?"
Humble beginnings
Frantzi Joseph and France Taillon met in Old Montreal in 1992. She was on spring break and out with fellow students from speech pathology school. He worked for a transport service at the time and was driving one of the girls back to Quebec City. Their initial connection was strong and remains so 31 years later.
In 1999, they welcomed the second of their two kids, another baby boy. His name, Pierre-Olivier, was a nod to the nightspot where they met, Deux Pierrots.
P.O. was born in Laval, a suburb of Montreal, but he and Mathieu spent their early years in Montreal North, a diverse neighborhood merging myriad ethnic groups, including Arabic, Italian and Haitian. Frantzi is Haitian. His mother lived downstairs, often cooking up one of P.O.'s favorite meals, red beans and rice.
The family moved across the St. Lawrence River to the South Shore neighborhood of Chambly in 2006. That quiet Montreal suburb was predominantly white.
The exposure to different backgrounds helped shape Pierre-Olivier's outlook.
"Seeing diversity growing up was big for us. And we were part of it," he said. "It definitely opened my eyes [to the realization] that not everyone has it easy."
Sports were a big part of their lives. France played college volleyball. Frantzi was a hockey player, skating at the midget level then a university in Quebec. They put the boys into figure skating. Soon, they asked to play hockey like dad.
After they moved to Chambly, Frantzi constructed a backyard rink. The boys were out there at 6:30 a.m., firing puck after puck. Frantzi hollered at them to hurry in and get dressed so they didn't miss the long bus ride to school.
Mathieu, extroverted and a tad hyperactive, and Pierre-Olivier, who is quieter and contemplative, loved hockey and wanted to play it year-round. But their parents pushed them to expand their horizons and athletic skill sets. They insisted the boys pack away their gear in the summer and find other activities to do.
They played marathon tennis matches. They attended golf camps. Both starred at soccer. Even a ping-pong game had their competitive juices overflowing.
"They wanted us to play a bunch of different sports," Mathieu said. "They wanted us to have fun first and to give it 100%, no matter what we were doing."
Pierre-Oliver admired Mathieu, two and a half years his elder. Still does today. But he was always looking to battle his big bro, even with their NHL fandom.
"Mathieu was a Washington Capitals fan, so P.O. chose the Penguins, just to make sure he was the opposite," France said. "They were such competitors."
Last month, the good-natured rivalry finally spilled over into an NHL hockey rink when P.O. and Mathieu played against each other in the league for the first time. They took coincidental penalties late in a Penguins win, getting incredulous laughs from Frantzi and France, who were in the house at PPG Paints Arena.
"It was very special for us. It's not something we thought about until we got to junior hockey, really," Mathieu said. "We realize that and will appreciate it even more later, when we have a couple of glasses of wine over a fire in the summer."
Beacon of positivity
The first thing that stood out to Jim Hulton, coach of the Charlottetown Islanders, was Pierre-Olivier's "1,000-watt smile." That is a feeling shared by many.
At his first Quebec Major Junior Hockey League training camp, Joseph impressed Hulton with his positivity, skating and puck skills. But there was one worry, which had factored in him lasting until the fifth round of the 2015 QMJHL draft.
"Size was something that has always dogged him a little bit," Hulton said. "He came into training camp that year and was arguably our best player. But we kept trying to find ways to talk ourselves into not keeping him because of his size."
At 16, Joseph was 5-foot-10 but only about 145 pounds, not for a lack of effort and appetite. The Islanders returned him to his midget team to mature. By November, Hulton was begging Charlottetown's general manager to bring him back.
Even though he was so skinny, Joseph made a fairly seamless transition to the Q. He hit a rut in January or February, figured some things out and come playoff time was asked to match up against a future NHLer in Anthony Beauvillier.
"Beauvillier was a dominant 18-year-old. That's a big gap at that age," Hulton said. "We were feeding him to the wolves. But P.O. had progressed that far."
Charlottetown lost to Shawinigan. But Hulton saw he had something special.
"Sometimes people underestimate how competitive he is because he looks like a happy-go-lucky guy," Hulton said. "But underneath is the heart of a lion."
Joseph over his four seasons with the Islanders upped his offensive contributions and improved his situational awareness. He also got stronger and packed on a few pounds. He was often spotted with a pair of PB&J sandwiches in hand.
Hulton raved about the impact that Joseph had on the Islanders organization.
"He comes from a really, really good family," he said. "When you meet them, you understand where P.O.'s optimism comes from, his bright personality, his genuine nature. Terrific parents. They never once talked about ice time or anything like that. They just wanted to make sure that he was being a good person."
Hulton picked P.O. to be his captain. A natural leader, he took youngsters such as Brett Budgell under his wings, sharing valuable lessons on and off the ice.
Joseph and Budgell both laughed while recalling one that didn't go as planned.
"I wanted to show him how to drive a stick," Joseph said. "We got to a four-way intersection. There were cars in every direction. He ended up stalling in the middle of the road. I had to hop out of the car, go around and start it again."
Budgell, who now plays for Newfoundland of the ECHL, said Joseph just has this knack for finding common ground with teammates and using it to connect.
"He knows that people learn in different ways and go about each day differently, and they all have different things going on in their lives," Budgell explained.
Breaking barriers
One of the first times Pierre-Olivier consciously experienced racism was when the family attended a big international tournament in Quebec City.
P.O., who was about 7 then, put his feet up on the seat in front of him. An older man scolded him, saying, "Maybe in your country you can do that, but not here."
When P.O. told France what happened, she said, "OK, we'll go see this man." She introduced herself and her son. The man's face turned white. But he offered no apology, only excuses. Still, she sent an important message to P.O.
"Be proud, stand up for yourself and see that some people are ignorant about it, so don't take it too personally," she said. "Don't let their words hurt you."
As Pierre-Olivier ascended to the NHL, he was subjected to hate speech on the ice, "even at the higher levels." He said he has been told on multiple occasions, "Go back to your country." And yet he holds no grudges against them.
"It's just ignorant people that maybe didn't have diversity growing up," P.O. said. "Hopefully, they can now see that the color of your skin doesn't matter."
Today, he leans on those experiences to help mentor Black youth players here.
After the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the ensuing events shined a light on a lack of diversity in hockey, Penguins Foundation executive director Jim Britt reached out to P.O, then a 21-year-old who had yet to make his NHL debut, to learn about the challenges he faced as a Black player. P.O. was happy to chat.
He told Britt about how inspiring it had been to watch P.K. Subban become one of the game's biggest and boldest stars for his hometown Montreal Canadiens. That representation was impactful for him. He hoped to provide that here.
Mission accomplished. Over the last two years, Pierre-Olivier has established strong relationships within the Willie O'Ree Academy, which provides support and resources to Black players in Pittsburgh. In 2021, he flew in from Montreal just to practice with the group. He has embraced every encounter since.
When the Penguins practiced at Boston's Fenway Park before the Winter Classic, P.O. spotted a pair of O'Ree Academy players who won a trip to the outdoor game. He invited them onto the bench to watch practice, meet his teammates and score some autographs.
This Wednesday night, Joseph will participate in their virtual Kids Breaking Barriers panel, part of the Penguins' annual Black History Month programming.
"He's such a young man still. He's so early in his career," Britt said of P.O. "But for him to have that approach, looking back on his own childhood and understanding that he can play that same role for someone else now, has just been incredible to see. He's such a great person, and we're so lucky to have him."
'Contagiously energetic'
When the Penguins acquired Joseph from the Arizona Coyotes in the Phil Kessel trade in 2019, the former first-round draft pick became their top defense prospect. But Wilkes-Barre/Scranton coach J.D. Forrest was struck by how self-aware and patient Joseph, then just 20, was when it came to his development.
"A lot of the young guys we get, whether they're first-rounders or not, want to be in the NHL yesterday," Forrest said. "He wasn't in a huge rush. He knew he needed some work and went about it in a really contagiously energetic way."
Joseph got his first taste of the NHL in 2021, playing fantastically for three weeks before fizzling out. He hoped to spend last season in Pittsburgh but tried to do too much in training camp and was cut. He would play in just four NHL games, but he didn't sulk. Joseph ended up turning the demotion into a positive.
He became a difference-maker offensively, with 10 goals and 23 assists in 61 AHL games. He displayed more consistency, another critique that followed from junior hockey to the pros. Forrest said Joseph, now 6-2 and 185 pounds, made gains in the gym. Plus, he emerged as a leader during their playoff push.
"He was a big reason we made it," Forrest said. "It was his everyday work that he was putting in and dragging people in there with him. That's how he led."
And so it felt like a formality that Joseph would crack the NHL roster this fall. But pushing for a spot, he strayed from the simple game that Mike Sullivan's coaching staff hoped to see. He watched offseason acquisition Ty Smith cut into his playing time. Then came the report that Joseph was on the trade block.
"The thing with P.O. is that he's a really good kid, he's competitive, he wants to do the right thing," Mathieu Joseph said. "He was putting a lot of pressure on himself to show up and perform. Then when the trade rumor happened, we talked about it. I said, 'Don't worry about it. Don't read anything. Just do you.'"
Joseph did just that, settling down to finally secure his spot with the Penguins.
As of Friday, he had skated in 49 games this season. His four goals trailed only his current landlord, Kris Letang, among Penguins defensemen. He had 15 points. And his plus-8 rating was tied with Sidney Crosby for the team lead.
There were obstacles on his path to this point, but he's enjoyed the journey.
"I'm still trying to fit in well and be myself more, but at the same time these guys have been great to me. I couldn't ask for a better group of guys to start my first real season. Everything around this team is A1," he said. "I'm happy, but I know there's another level we need to reach. And I want to be part of it."
