Sheldon Souray, former star defenseman of the Montréal Canadiens, now with the Edmonton Oilers, showed an unusual amount of praise, and a bit of a reality check recently...
Indeed, he compared teammate Dwayne Roloson, a very decent netminder, to gods and legends Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur.
Now, I'll admit Souray almost knows what he's talking about: as a young rookie, he played in front of Brodeur with the New Jersey Devils, and also played with José Théodore, the only heir to Roy worth mentioning so far in Montréal since coach Mario Tremblay got him sent to Denver to finish his career as a Colorado Avalanche.
It's intended as a complimet to Roloson, for keeping his head up in a three-way battle for net time in Edmonton, where he shares duties with Mathieu Garon (Théodore's former pupil in Montréal) and newcomer (and Quebecer/Canadiens fan) Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers, the Oilers' future star goalie. Indeed, Roloson deserves much respect for being to keep his team in games even at 39 years of age, after propelling the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Finals just a few years back...
It's also a bit of a slag on Théodore, who won the Vezina Trophy (best goalie in the league) and Hart Trophy (most valuable player in the league) for the Habs in 2002 after being the team's best player for the four years prior. Théo, as he is known, was chased out of Montréal when his off-ice problems started interfering with his game; it took him a year to get back on point, in Colorado, too, as he single-handedly brought the team to the playoffs last spring. His ego also got in the way of his game as he tried playing through an injury and was ransacked by Detroit when they should have been an easy target. This season, Théo is sharing duties with Brent Johnson for the Washington Capitals, winning most of his games, but giving up more than 3 goals per game, on average, a statistic that didn't mean much 15 to 20 years ago but puts him in the bottom third of the league at the moment.
Nice of him to keep an old-timer's spirits up. Lord knows he needs it, especially if he's to play more than the two others guys he's sharing a job with. But to compare a guy whose biggest feat was in the minor leagues with the two winningest goalies in the history of the league (and the best and fifth-best of all time, in my opinion, with Roy at #1) is going a little overboard, especially when you've played with another (perhaps) overrated goalie who has habits of being the best in a series of short stints but has struggled with consistency over the course of his career...
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