It was a vital moment of one of the early games of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ season.

And play-by-play radio broadcaster Joe Brand was nowhere to be heard.

At least not in Western Pennsylvania or any outposts on the team’s radio network including Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland.

Somewhere in between the visiting radio booth of Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and the studios of WXDX-FM in Bridgeville, a plug got pulled or the wrong button was pressed and the audio feed of Brand’s call was lost, forcing intermission host Brian Metzer to offer descriptions off the television screen of Maple Leafs forward William Nylander’s tying goal 50 seconds into the second period of what eventually became a 4-2 win for the Maple Leafs on Oct. 12.

The voices of Brand and color commentator Phil Bourque returned to the broadcast a few minutes later.

With more than a decade of doing just about every job, big and small, in sports broadcasting, Brand knew how to stay composed under the circumstances.

“It’s live production. It’s live sports,” Brand said five days after that game. “Things happen, and things go haywire. The main thing you can do is just remain calm in those types of situations because you’ll get it figured out. … We’re getting closer and closer to the second period, and I’m just like, ‘Can we get the feed?’ The period started … we don’t know what’s happening, but we just started calling the game again. We did, then we found out we weren’t on the air.

“That stuff happens. It’s not a fun part of the job, but it just happens.”

In September, Brand took on the job of being the team’s radio play-by-play broadcaster replacing Steve Mears, who departed in July to take on the same duties on the television side with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

A native of Oak Lawn, Ill., a southwestern suburb of Chicago, Brand had been seeking this type of job for the better part of a decade and seemingly has performed just about every job in the broadcasting field other than climbing a 2,000-foot tower to change the warning lights for aircraft.

Brand, 33, has produced broadcasts, shot videos, written press releases and hosted pregame and postgame shows primarily in the Chicago area. The latter of those duties most recently happened with the iconic WGN radio for the Chicago Blackhawks.

He also has handled play-by-play duties for minor-league baseball teams including the Traverse City (Mich.) Pit Spitters and Kane County (Ill.) Cougars.

All of that varied experience led to him taking over in the Penguins booth this summer.

“Everything I did was geared towards eventually landing one of these jobs,” Brand said. “But I’m also grateful for those experiences because I think it’s helped me one way or another. Being a reporter has helped me in my play-by-play growth because you look at the game a different way. You ask questions to players a different way.

“Producing and editing and all that stuff, you just understand how a good product gets made. That’s kind of my main philosophy. I care about the product. I care about what goes out over the air, and I want to make that the best possible thing for the listener, for the viewer. … As long as it’s good and people are enjoying it, that’s what I care about.”

When Mears departed, word got out quickly that one of the 32 radio play-by-play broadcast gigs in the NHL was vacant.

Brand inquired immediately as did countless other applicants.

“I know the process,” said Brand, an Illinois State alumni. “You reach out to anyone and everyone around that area, the organization. You ask anyone in the league what they know about it, and you try to figure out your best plan of attack. … It ended up working in my favor that I had reached out to (Penguins television play-by-play broadcaster Josh Getzoff) over the past years, sending my tapes, asking for constructive criticism. He was really good at giving me feedback on what to improve on.

“Once this opened up, I (asked Getzoff), ‘Do you think this is worth applying for?’ He was like, ‘Yes, you’re definitely capable of this.’ ”

Part of that interview process included a mock broadcast where Brand and Bourque called an overtime period off a video.

“I felt very comfortable with (Bourque) right away,” Brand said. “A big part of that was the fact that he reached out to me as I was heading to Pittsburgh for the audition. It made me feel very comfortable. He made me feel right at home. I read his book, I knew how open of a guy he was and how transparent he was. I felt that immediately.”

A forward with the franchise’s first two Stanley Cup championship teams in the early 1990s, Bourque still is getting accustomed to his new broadcast partner but likes what he has seen (or heard) so far.

“When you’re in the same area for three hours with the same person, you have to have a chemistry,” Bourque said. “We’re working on that, we’re building that, because I’m a true believer (that) the product you hear on the air is a byproduct of the relationship you build outside the booth. He’s a really good guy. He’s fun to be around. He’s really good at what he does.

“We’re a work in progress right now to build the chemistry that’s necessary to deliver what the fans have come to hear over the years. Whether it’s been (previous radio play-by-play broadcasters Mike Lange, Getzoff, Mears) or now Joe, the bar has been set high and we’re on our way to meeting those expectations.”

Brand is still getting used to his new home and goes on walks in various parts of the city to get accustomed to his new surroundings.

One of those strolls illustrated to him how important radio broadcasts for sports teams remain in Pittsburgh.

“The radio followship is so big in Chicago, but it seems so small compared to Pittsburgh,” Brand said. “My first weekend here, I’m just walking around the Strip District and the Steelers are on. I must have seen five different people with transistor radios listening to the Steelers game. I’ve heard about the strong following listening to the Penguins on the radio. We had a radio summit with all of our (35) affiliates. Sometimes, I try to not think about how many people are listening because so many are. But how important hockey on the radio and sports on the radio is to this town was very relevant.

“I totally understood that intensity right away. … I understand the significance of Pittsburgh sports on the radio. I felt that right away.”

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