Who Dunn it? Vince's family awakes to message in the snow after son scores Blues' OT winner in Toronto

It had been a long and emotional night for John and Tracy Dunn. They watched their son, Blues rookie defenseman Vince Dunn, score the game-winning goal in a 2-1 overtime victory against his hometown team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. Then they made the one hour, 45 minute trip from the Air Canada Centre back home to Lindsay, Ontario, arriving around 1:30 a.m.

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So the Dunn’s were a bit blurry-eyed seven hours later when John — “the morning person,” according to Tracy — awoke and looked out the front window.

“I thought, ‘What the hell is that?’” John told The Athletic.

“He said, ‘Come and see what’s outside,’” Tracy said. “Someone had spray-painted on our snowbank, ‘Vince wins it!!’ on both sides. We could see it from our house and everybody could see it from the street. I couldn’t believe it, so I started to take pictures of it. We still don’t know who did it. We think we have an idea, but still nobody has come forward to say, ‘We did this.’”

They don’t care. The “vandalism” will melt, just like their hearts after Vince victimized Toronto with his fourth goal of the season, the first in OT by a Blues’ rookie defenseman since the 2001 playoffs.

Dunn wasn’t even expected to play in Tuesday’s game. He missed the previous four games because of a bout with the flu, and the Blues weren’t planning to dress him against the Maple Leafs. But with the late arrival of veteran Jay Bouwmeester, who traveled to Toronto commercially after staying in St. Louis for the birth of his child, the team inserted Dunn.

“There were people that were texting us, ‘he’s in, he’s out, he’s in, he’s out,’” Tracy recalled. “But John and I hadn’t seen him since we were in St. Louis in December, so either way we just wanted to see him and support him. We were going regardless.”

John and Tracy, whose family has been life-long Leaf fans, were seated in Section 106 at the ACC when Dunn took his first shift just 1:24 after the puck dropped.

“I turned to John and said, ‘He’s hungry and he’s going to score,’” Tracy said.

“I said the exact same thing,” John replied. “As soon as he stepped on the ice, you could see that he was determined.”

Fortunately, the couple was sitting next to another pair of Blues fans, who didn’t know they were Dunn’s parents – well, at least they didn’t at that point in the game. They were the only four in that area cheering on the visitors.

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“The people around us thought we were crazy,” John said.

The situation was the same in Section 120, where Scott Wasson, who coached Dunn as a 14-year-old major bantam in Peterborough, Ontario, was watching with a friend in town from Florida. Wasson was supposed to attend the game with his 10-year-old son, Andrew, but Andrew took a rain check when he thought Dunn wasn’t playing. Like Dunn’s parents, the Wasson family’s allegiance to the Leafs gets put on hold when it comes to their favorite defenseman.

“The fans around me knew I was cheering for the Blues because over the course of the game I was talking to myself, wanting Vince to do well,” Wasson said. “When they scored the tying goal, I came out of my seat.”

With Blues goalie Carter Hutton pulled for an extra attacker, Alexander Steen scored to make it 1-1 with 57 seconds remaining, a goal that eventually sent the game to overtime.

Dunn hasn’t seen much ice time in OT this season, but he was sent out for a shift just 1 1/2 minutes into the five minute frame.

“We see that Vince ended up taking possession of the puck and it appeared that he may have elbowed (Toronto forward Mitch Marner) in the head,” John said. “We knew at that point there, he was beating Marner.”

Dunn went coast-to-coast, creating a 2-on-1 with teammate Paul Stastny, racing in on Maple Leafs defenseman Jake Gardiner and goalie Frederik Andersen.

“Myself and Tracy, we actually thought he was going to pass it off,” John said. “That’s just Vince, he’s a very unselfish player.”

Wasson was thinking shot.

“I saw (Gardiner) cheating toward (Stastny), letting the goalie take the shooter, and you could tell from the blueline in that he was going to shoot,” he said. “Vinny made the perfect shot!”

Straight Outta Mississauga

— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) January 17, 2018

Sometime in the third period, the two fans seated next to the Dunn’s asked John and Tracy what their tie-in was with the Blues, and the couple reluctantly dropped their son’s name. So the strangers were more than understanding of the scene that ensued when Vince scored.

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“Tracy jumped up and knocked the glasses right off my head, and they ended up going into the stands,” John said.

On the ice, Dunn was in the midst of a wild goal celebration, and his mom explained why it was so well-deserved.

“He scored his first goal against the Florida Panthers (Oct. 19) and they were losing (5-1), so it’s not hockey etiquette to have the big ‘celly’ of your first NHL goal when your team is losing,” Tracy said. “He waited until it was the right time.”

Afterwards, the family shared an emotional celebration together in the lower bowl of the ACC.

“There was a lot of tears in the stands at that point,” John said.

Tracy nearly teared up again Thursday, thinking about her father, Chris Paylor, who wasn’t feeling well enough to travel to the game in Toronto.

“He’s been a big influence in Vince’s hockey, and I know that Vince scored that goal for my dad,” she said. “That’s not something we’ve shared, but I know that that goal was for his Papa.”

Paylor might have missed Dunn’s memorable goal in person, but the headline was painted in the snow the next day: “Vince wins it!!”

Read more: The Blues’ line: Vince Dunn is quickly making an impact in St. Louis

(Top photo courtesy of Tracy and John Dunn)