Oilers goalie Dwayne Roloson knows the reality of his situation in Edmonton: third-string goalie or trade bait.
JASPER, ALBERTA - Dwayne Roloson has been around long enough.
To his credit, he wasn't fooled by the whole Ted Saskin thing a couple of years back, and sitting here in a cozy little mountain town, staying at the posh Jasper Park Lodge and biking back and forth to the local arena on mountain bikes might appear to be idyllic.
But Roloson knows that his reality is this: He turns 39 on Sunday, the day Edmonton plays its season-opener against Colorado, in a game he has already been informed that he will not start. He is making $3 million in the final year of his post-Stanley Cup run contract - with a cap hit of $3.667 million - far too much money for an NHL team to be paying its backup.
Roloson is neither the projected No. 1 'tender in Edmonton, like 30-year-old Mathieu Garon. Nor was he drafted 31st overall and carefully groomed for the past five years by this organization like Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers. In fact, of the three goalies who will start the season on the Edmonton Oilers 23-man roster, there is absolutely no doubt that the front office is pulling for the other two - who combine to earn $1.725 million - ahead of Roloson.
It is only natural for teams to cheer for younger and cheaper, so naturally, the Oilers are banking on Garon to prove that last season - by far his best as an NHL starter - wasn't a fluke. And that Drouin-Delauriers - whom the team does not believe would clear waivers if sent down - is ready to slip in behind Garon and begin his own apprenticeship for the starter's job.
The problem is, of course, we're talking about goaltending here. And the Oilers are "hoping" on Garon and the kid. That's a far cry from "knowing."
Garon has to prove he can play 70 games at the same level he played 47 last season. And if he can't, nobody can be sure at this stage that Drouin-Delauriers is ready to give the Oilers 35 quality starts as a backup. His next NHL start will be his first.
So Roloson knows what he is these days. He'll even admit it: "Insurance."
He's not complaining, or trying to make waves. He's just a guy who has been around hockey long enough that he doesn't need a gypsy to read the cards being dealt at Oilers camp this fall.
His mandate?
"Don't let them put you in a spot to be the backup," Roloson said on Wednesday. "Do whatever you can do to prove that you can play, that you want to play. That's all I can do: take advantage of the playing time that they're giving me, and do the best that I can."
The one quality Roloson has always had is that he is a battler. But you can't battle from the bench. So if Garon is slated to play, say, four out of every five games, and there are two backup goalies hanging around, that's one start every 10 games for Roloson - plus mop-up duty.
You don't prove anything with that kind of ice time.
Roloson is not ready to say that out loud. But he doesn't have to.
"Obviously something is going to happen," he admits. "We don't know what it is."
A trade? A buy-out? A trip through the waiver wire? Anything is possible, and all get more probably the better Garon shows this season.
Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish has also been around the block a few times. He knows that a three-goal system does not work; that the tension it produces in and around the team can become a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Goalies worry so much about the perils of performing poorly when they finally get their chance, that when they finally get their chance they perform poorly.
MacTavish won't even address the topic with the media anymore, a rare embargo from one of hockey's most media-friendly coaches. And he doesn't have to spell the situation out to Roloson, who came into the league as a backup, and will play his next game - career game No. 400 - as a backup once more.
In between, all he did was take these Oilers to a Stanley Cup final in '06.
"Going through what I have gone through in my career," he said. "Does it suck? Yes. It does. But if you dwell on it, it seeps in and affects your game."
He has vowed not to allow that to happen.
"I'm hoping that, for me, [accepting a permanent back-up role] does not happen for another couple of years," he adds.
Sadly, very few goaltenders ever get much say in that timetable.