Back in July of 2000, Dwayne Roloson was at a crossroads in his life. He had been to the Stanley Cup Finals two years earlier as a backup to all-world goaltender Dominik Hasek, but his contract was up and the phone wasn't ringing with offers to stay in the NHL.
Roloson and his wife, Melissa, who was pregnant with their first child, talked about taking a minor-league contract with the St. Louis Blues just to stay in the game. But it obviously wasn't exactly what new parents were looking to go through.
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"I was 31 and had only played in 32 games with Buffalo over the past two seasons and my wife and I knew we had a big decision to make," Roloson
said. "I told Melissa that maybe it would be worth it to take a step
back and see what happens. I said, 'Who knows? Maybe this would be
it as far as playing. Maybe it would lead to something better."
The something better was being named Most Valuable Player of the American Hockey League at Worcester in the 2000-01 season, which led to a free-agent tryout with the Minnesota Wild and a chance to earn a spot on the expansion team's NHL roster.
Even though the contract was modest by current standards, it was another chance to show Roloson's critics that a 30-something veteran can prove to be a net gain for any team, which he has for the past three seasons for the Wild. All of which was yet another step forward to this season in which he is representing the host Wild at the NHL All-Star Game in St. Paul this weekend.
This rags to riches story oozes with contradictions. To say Roloson is used to uncertainty is perhaps the understatement of the decade. He was un-drafted after being Hockey East Player of the Year and first-team East All-American at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell in 1994. After two successful years playing for the St. John Flames of the AHL, he earned a promotion to Calgary in 1996-97 -- sharing the goaltending with Trevor Kidd that season and Rick Tabaracci the next.
But that led to another trip through free agency and a signing with Buffalo, where his biggest claim to fame came in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals in 1999 -- when Hasek was injured and Roloson stopped 28 shots in leading the Sabres to a 5-4 victory at Toronto.
But being the backup to a guy like Hasek brings no plaudits, and that's what led Roloson to Worcester, wife pregnant with first son, Brett, and not knowing where this minor-league assignment would take him.
"We wound up moving in with Melissa's parents," Roloson said, raising his eyebrows. "That wasn't exactly my first choice, trying to make a living for my family and all."
But this wasn't Michael vs. Archie in All in the Family or Ben Stiller vs. Robert DiNiro in Meet the Parents.
"No, nothing like that," Roloson laughed. "My father-in-law worked for International Paper and had just been transferred from Edmonton to Framingham, Mass. It actually turned out great, because while I was on the road and Melissa was able to have her parents there to help with the baby."
You could say the circle of faith, if you will, was never in doubt.
"It was clear from his first day in camp with the Wild that Rolie wanted to make the most of this opportunity," Wild coach Jacques Lemaire recalls. "Wanting to do well is half of the battle. When I was in New Jersey I remember him being a less-patient goalie. Maybe all of that moving around matured him.
"There's definitely no wasted movement now. He stands there and dares you to get it behind him."
And if that experience in goal wasn't enough to give Roloson a pretty good perspective of working for success in the NHL, then, well, his first real job certainly was -- picking tobacco in the fields near his childhood home of Simcoe, Ontario.
"Yeah, this is a breeze compared to that, where the hours were long -- even if the pay ($65 a day) was pretty good," Roloson shrugged. "My hands ached from pulling the leaves from the plants. I remember it was always so hard to get the black off my hands from the tar and nicotine."
If you are beginning to get the idea that Dwayne Roloson is a pretty interesting character, you are right. It takes a lot of patience to be a stand-in to a star like Hasek. Ask a lot of the stars on Broadway, who wait for years to get the opportunity to stand in just once.
Playing goal in the NHL, however, is more strenuous and exacting than just memorizing the lines of a Broadway script.
"The lack of work causes you to try to make up saves in practice," he said. "It's tough to survive like that. The guys are so good now they just pick you apart."
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Roloson picked up some goaltending tips while backing up Dominik Hasek. |
"I remembered a lot of things Dom had taught me and it helped me read the play a lot better -- focus on the play and get a good reading on what was going to happen in front of me," Roloson said Hasek's advice that he now could work on in earnest. "I used to think a goalie making a spectacular save was just amazing. Now, I would rather watch a guy stop 36 shots without making an unbelievable save.
"With the Wild, Manny (Fernandez) and I pretty much are told how important it is to make the first save -- and the defense takes care of the rest."
Pretty humble response for a guy who allowed two goals or fewer in 14 consecutive games at one point in the first part of this season and 25 of his 32 starts going into the All-Star weekend. Though his won-lost-tied record was just 13-13-8, Roloson had three shutouts, a .932 save percentage and a microscopic 1.98 goals-against average.
A few weeks ago, Roloson said getting to the Stanley Cup Finals with the Sabres was his best moment in the game. But he was waffling a bit with the impending invitation to the All-Star Game.
"This is all about getting a chance to show what you can do," Roloson said. "While playing behind Dom in 1999 was an exciting ride for the team, it was a bit stifling for my career as a player."
So does he now feel vindicated from the days when he was cast aside and had to go back to the minors?
"Not yet," Roloson says.
It's clear that statistics don't mean diddly if your team doesn't win -- and Dwayne Roloson has been seen enough of the world to know that real success doesn't come unless the Minnesota Wild make another long run in the playoffs like they did last year.
