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NHL STANLEY CUP FINALS: OILERS v HURRICANES

June 6, 2006

Dwayne Roloson

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA: Practice Day

Q. Dwayne, did you have an MRI this morning or did you have the exact tests on the leg and if so, what can you tell us about the nature of the injury?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: Well, I'm not a medical doctor so I'm not going to be able to give you the exact terms that they used. A good friend of mine is down here at Duke doing his internship at Duke University. So we're able to get over there today and get an MRI, and basically told us what the doctor said, had diagnosed it last night as a third degree MCL, maybe a little bit less than that, but, you know, it's something that's going to heal. It's not going to be tomorrow, but it's going to heal fairly quickly. That's what we're hoping for, anyways.
Q. Can you take us through the play, and is it ironic the way you felt you've been getting bumped all playoff long and it takes a play like Andrew Ladd cutting to the net? Any ill will towards him or is that just a hockey play?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: Well, out of all the times I get rammed in this playoffs, that was the only time I would say that it probably wasn't a penalty. He was coming to the net pretty hard and, you know, Mark Andre was doing his best to try to keep him out, but unfortunately one of those collisions where, you know -- he went to the net a little bit more than I think Mark wanted him to and I was trying to get to a position, tried to make the save and I just fell on my knee, and my knee and elbow got wedged against the post and pinched my elbow and screwed up my knee.
I haven't looked at the play that's just from my recollection.
Q. When you say it's going to heal very quickly, do you hold out any hopes of coming back in the series, and how tough is this for you, as Craig just said, being 36, having carried the team or helped carry the team to this stage and sort of being denied, perhaps, the opportunity to play the rest of the series?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: Well, obviously it's frustrating because you want to -- you know, as a player, you want to be out there helping your team win and have a chance to win the Stanley Cup. You know, it's one of those things talking to the doctors this morning, I think 60 percent of man day losses are due to an MCL strain in the NHL. It's an injury that happens a lot and unfortunately it happened at the wrong time for me personally, I haven't had any bad injuries before, and it was pretty funny when the doctors looked at the MRI this morning. They asked me if I was actually a goalie because my knees were in great shape. Besides the MCL.
Q. Any chance at all of coming back?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: No. None.
Q. How do you approach your role now from here on in? You're a guy that's always upbeat around the team, you're a guy that keeps things loose, do you stay right in the mix? What's your role now for the rest of the series?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: I hope my role doesn't change. Obviously it's changed a little bit where I won't be on the ice, but still, I'll do whatever it takes to try and help our guys win.
You know, like I said all along, we've got seven games to win four and we still have that opportunity. You know, we've got great goalies, between Ty and Jussi, and, you know, those guys wouldn't be in this league if they weren't great goalies.
You know, I've got a lot of respect for both of them and I'm very confident that they will both do a great job.
Q. The perception by some is that this team is done like dinner now because you're out, what's your reaction to that?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: That's the falsest statement that you can probably make, falsest is a word -- I don't even think it's a word. Like Andrew Burnett always used to say -- oh well, I'm not even going to go there. (Laughter).
It's one of those things that, you know, this team has always rallied around adversity. It's a team that takes adversity and uses it to better themselves. Like last series, as much as Coach Carlyle didn't believe that we had the flu bug, if he would have been in our room, he would have been going, like, oh my God, how are these guys playing hockey? It's been like that the whole playoffs.
Now it's just another person, and I'm sure the guys are going to be rallying and doing whatever it takes to win hockey games. The spirit in our room hasn't changed. So that shows you how tight this locker room is, and we're going to do whatever it takes to win.
Q. I think everyone would understand if for a moment, a minute, an hour, you felt sorry for yourself because of everything you've done, and then this happens to you. I mean, did you have any thoughts like that when you were hit last night, this morning, why me, why now?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: Me personally, no. My wife probably. (Laughter).
You know, unfortunately, that's a part of sports. Guys get injured. And unfortunately for me, it's the wrong time for me personally. You can't really feel sorry for yourself. You can't really feel sorry for anything else. Happy that we're able to get here this far and as a team, we've done it all the way through and I hope we can do it again.
Q. How do you feel about the fact that so many fans and media are kind of blaming Mark Andre that he may have cost you the Stanley Cup because of what he did?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: You can't blame Mark Andre at all. He was playing his position and trying to do his job. He's a great defenseman and he will be, he's a first-year guy, he's got a lot of years to be playing in this league. For people to be pegging him as the guy, it's not -- you know, he's trying to do his job and prevent the guy to come to the front of the net, and it doesn't matter who it was, whether it was Chris Pronger or Jason Smith or any of those guys, it would have been the same thing, you know.
So just because it was Mark, guys are pointing fingers at him, it's not his fault whatsoever. He's just trying to do whatever it takes to win a hockey game and he's just trying to prevent a guy coming to the front of the net.
Q. Two questions, please: Did you know right away that you had done something bad? Was the pain or just did it flash through your mind that it was something really bad, or do you think, okay, maybe this isn't so bad? And the other question; did you watch the end of the game in the locker room on TV, or were you so absorbed in getting treatment and worrying about what happened to you that you didn't watch?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: Well, yeah, I knew right away that something bad happened. I felt something pop in my knee. When Kenny Lowe came out to find out what was going on, actually my elbow hurt a lot more than my knee. I told him, I don't know what I did to my elbow, but it hurts pretty bad.
He goes, "Well, what else hurts?"
I said, "Well, my knee."
He said, "Well, what happened?"
I said, "Well, it felt great standing up, but as soon as I went down in a butterfly, my leg, we tested it, my leg went to the right and I had nothing there. I had no control over it. And yeah, when I got in there, obviously watched the end of the game.
Q. Being there's no clear-cut replacement for you at this point, do you talk to both of them the same way or do you give them different messages or how do you approach the guys that will take over?
DWAYNE ROLOSON: You just try and help them out whatever they want. You know, Ty is going to have totally different questions than Juss. They have similar styles, but, you know, they are different in the way they play players.
So, for me to tell Juss, this guy likes to go here, this is his tendencies, you know, would I tell Ty the same thing, but the way he plays it might be a little bit different than Juss, so I would say look for this or look for that.
But you give the guys the same information, but these guys have been around the league long enough. They know these players just as well as I do, if not better. You really can't as a fellow goalie try to give them too much information because then it becomes overload. You just want them to be able to go out and play the best they can play and give our guys a chance to win. They are both great goalies, like I said before, and they both will do a great job.

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