Twice in one week, Rick DiPietro has been the talk of the Twitter-verse, but this time the jabs and jokes came to a halt after a TV reporter revealed that DiPietro said he had suicidal thoughts over the past three years.

However, the former Islanders goaltender insists that those comments he made to News 12 Long Island were not meant to be taken literally.

"I was just trying to draw attention to how important my wife has been to me," DiPietro told ESPNNewYork.com in a telephone interview.