Patrick Roy

Roy was drafted in the third round, 51st overall, in the 1984 NHL Entry Draft by the Montreal Canadiens, a team he disliked, being a fan of the rival Quebec Nordiques.[12] His grandmother Anna Peacock was a big Canadiens fan, but died before seeing her grandson being drafted.[13] Roy kept playing for the Granby Bisons of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) before being called up by the Canadiens. Despite the thoughts that he was not going to play for the team, on February 23, 1985, he made his NHL debut when he replaced the Canadiens' starting goaltender, Doug Soetaert, in the game's third period.[12] Roy played for 20 minutes and earned his first NHL win without allowing a goal.[12] After the game, he was reassigned to the Sherbrooke Canadiens of the AHL. Despite starting as a backup, Roy replaced Greg Moffett after he had equipment troubles during a game.[12] He earned a win, became the starting goaltender for the playoffs and led the team to a Calder Cup championship with ten wins in 13 games.[12]

In the following season, Roy started playing regularly for the Canadiens and took over the starting goaltender's job when incumbent Steve Penney was injured in January. He played 47 games during the regular season and won the starting job for the Stanley Cup playoffs, where he emerged as a star,[14] leading his team to an unexpected Stanley Cup title and winning the Conn Smythe Trophy for the Most Valuable Player in the playoffs.[12] As a 20-year-old, he became the youngest Conn Smythe winner ever and was chosen for the NHL All-Rookie Team.[10][15]

Nicknamed St. Patrick after the victory, Roy continued playing for the Canadiens, who won the Adams Division in 1987–88 and in 1988–89, when they lost to the Calgary Flames in the Stanley Cup Finals. Roy, together with Brian Hayward, won the William M. Jennings Trophy in 1987, 1988, and 1989, as the Canadiens regularly allowed the fewest goals against. In 1989 and 1990, he won the Vezina Trophy for best goaltender in the NHL and was voted for the NHL First All-Star Team. In 1991–92, the Canadiens won the Adams Division again, with Roy having a very successful individual year, winning the William M. Jennings Trophy, Vezina Trophy and being selected for the NHL First All-Star Team. Despite the successful regular season, the Canadiens were swept in the second round by the Boston Bruins, who stopped their playoff run for the fourth time in five years.

In the 1992–93 season, the Canadiens fell from first overall in March to finish the regular season third in their division behind title winner Boston Bruins and a resurgent second place Quebec Nordiques.[16] During the first round of the 1993 playoffs against the archrival Nordiques, Roy was in a goaltending duel against Ron Hextall; Hextall was also a Vezina and Conn Smythe winner with his previous team, the Philadelphia Flyers, when they had several ill-tempered post-season encounters with Roy's Canadiens in the 1980s. The Canadiens lost the first two games of the series with Roy letting in soft goals, and a newspaper in Roy's hometown district suggested that he be traded with the headline "NORDIQUES WIN GAME, BATTLE OF GOALIES," while the subhead added (Quebec goalie Ron) "HEXTALL GETS BETTER OF ROY."[17] Nordiques Goaltending Coach Dan Bouchard also proclaimed that his team had "solved Roy." These comments seemed to fire up Roy, who responded by winning the next four games against the Nordiques (Roy was replaced for part of Game Five by backup André Racicot after being struck by a puck in the collarbone)[16]), sweeping the Buffalo Sabres in the next round and winning the first three against the New York Islanders to tie the record of an 11-game playoff winning streak. Roy also set a record with ten-straight playoff overtime wins — two against Quebec, three against Buffalo, two against the New York Islanders (where he denied Benoît Hogue and Pierre Turgeon on breakaways during overtime) and three against the Los Angeles Kings in the Finals. Roy had led his team, which did not have a player that finished in the top twenty regular season scoring, to the Stanley Cup championship and was named the Conn Smythe Trophy winner.

In 1994, the Canadiens were the defending champions but they were knocked out in the first round by the Boston Bruins. Nonetheless, that seven-game series was notable in the eyes of Montreal fans as Roy came down with appendicitis and missed Game 3. He convinced doctors to let him return for Game 4 and led the Canadiens to a 5–2 victory, stopping 39 shots. Roy was a finalist for the Vezina Trophy, finishing third in voting behind winner Dominik Hašek and runner-up John Vanbiesbrouck.[18]

Four games into the 1995–96 season, Mario Tremblay was hired as Montreal's new head coach, replacing Jacques Demers. Roy and Tremblay, who had roomed together while teammates, had a notably strained relationship, with Tremblay regularly mocking Roy's English-speaking abilities. Roy was a frequent target of Tremblay during the latter's sports radio career.[19] The two had almost come to blows in two incidents in 1995, one at a Long Island coffee shop before Tremblay was announced as a coach and after Tremblay allegedly fired a shot at Roy's throat during practice.

On December 2, 1995, in his 22nd game (and the team's 24th) of the 1995–96 season, Roy was in net against the Detroit Red Wings during Montreal's worst home game in franchise history, an 11–1 loss.[20] Roy allowed nine goals on 26 shots, which was highly unusual, as star goalies are generally taken out of the game quickly on off-nights.[21] During the second period, the crowd provided mock applause after Roy made an easy save, prompting him to sarcastically raise his arms in mock celebration. When Mario Tremblay pulled Roy in the middle of the second period in favour of Pat Jablonski, Roy stormed past him and told Canadiens President Ronald Corey, who was sitting behind the bench, "It's my last game in Montreal."[19] The next day, Roy was suspended by the Canadiens.

At the time, Roy told the media that despite allowing five goals on 17 shots in the first, Tremblay kept him in net in order to humiliate him. In later interviews, Roy cited a general distaste with what he thought was a loosening of standards with the team.[22]

Four days after the incident, the Canadiens traded Roy and captain Mike Keane to the Colorado Avalanche in exchange for Jocelyn Thibault, Martin Ručinský and Andrei Kovalenko. The return for Roy was seen as uneven at the time it was made, and eventually became known as one of the most one-sided deals in NHL history. Canadiens General Manager Réjean Houle at the time had been GM for only 40 days and faced criticism for making the trade instead of trying to resolve the tension between Roy and Tremblay.[22]

In the 1995–96 season, after his mid-season trade from the Canadiens, Roy was a runnerup to Vezina Trophy winner Jim Carey, and helped the Avalanche, in their first season since their move from Quebec, win their first Stanley Cup.

In the 1996 Western Conference Semi-finals against the Chicago Blackhawks, Jeremy Roenick was stopped by Roy on a breakaway during overtime in Game 4, while apparently being hauled down by Avalanche defenceman Sandis Ozolinsh. The referee did not call for a penalty shot on the play and the Avalanche won in triple overtime on Joe Sakic's game-winning goal. Two days prior, Roenick had scored on an unchallenged breakaway to tie the game and send it to overtime, and the Blackhawks ended up winning Game 3.

After Game 4, Roenick told the media, "It should have been a penalty shot, there's no doubt about it. I like Patrick's quote that he would've stopped me. I'd just want to know where he was in Game 3, probably getting his jock out of the rafters in the United Center maybe." Roy retorted with: "I can't really hear what Jeremy says, because I've got my two Stanley Cup rings plugging my ears."[23]

Roy and the Avalanche beat the Blackhawks in six games and went on to win the Stanley Cup.

Roy was a large part of the Avalanche–Red Wings rivalry, which also involved players Adam Foote and Brendan Shanahan, among others. The Avalanche and Red Wings met in the playoffs five times from 1996 to 2002, with the Avs winning in 1996, 1999 and 2000. The heated competition between teams is linked to the 11–1 Montreal loss to Detroit that precipitated Roy's mid-season trade to Colorado in December 1995, and in that season's 1996 Conference Finals Roy helped his new team eliminate first-place Detroit (considered by some as a measure of atonement for the December 2 game in Montreal). During the Avalanche–Red Wings brawl in 1997, he fought Wings' goaltender Mike Vernon. The next season, he fought another Red Wings goaltender, Chris Osgood. In what would be Roy's final playoff meeting with Detroit, he was pulled after allowing six goals in Game 7 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals, a game Detroit won 7–0 to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

In 2000–01, Roy's Avalanche won the Presidents' Trophy for the best regular season record. In the playoffs, his team advanced to the Finals, where they faced the defending champion New Jersey Devils, who were backstopped by Martin Brodeur, a star netminder who as a youngster had idolized Roy. In Game 4, while playing the puck behind his own net, Roy could not make a clearing pass, allowing the Devils to score into an empty net to tie the game.[24] Roy had his worst game of the Finals in a 4–1 loss during Game 5, which gave the Devils a 3–2 series lead, but rebounded in Game 6 by stopping 24 shots for his then-record 19th career playoff shutout in a 4–0 victory. The Avalanche jumped to a three-goal lead in Game 7 before conceding one consolation goal to win their second Stanley Cup. Roy was named playoff MVP for the third time in his career, an NHL record. Roy has said that he and his teammates had wanted to win it for Ray Bourque, who finally won his first Cup after 22 seasons in the NHL; Bourque who had previously played 21 seasons with the Boston Bruins had numerous playoff encounters against Roy when he was with the Canadiens.[25]

Roy's final game was played against the Minnesota Wild on April 22, 2003, in a Game 7 overtime loss in the first round of the 2003 playoffs.

Patrick Roy announced his retirement on May 28, 2003.

On May 23, 2013, Roy was named head coach and vice-president of hockey operations of the Colorado Avalanche.[39] TSN's Bob McKenzie reported that Roy will have the final say in all hockey matters. Then-Avalanche General Manager Greg Sherman retained his post, but was considered the general manager "in name only." At the time, Roy was the only coach in the NHL who has the title or powers of general manager. Before the season started, his former Avs teammate, Joe Sakic, was hired as executive vice-president of hockey operations. Although the title nominally put him above Roy on the organization chart, Roy and Sakic shared most of the duties normally held by a general manager in the NHL–a practice that continued after Sakic was formally granted the title of general manager in 2014.

Roy's first regular season game with the Colorado Avalanche as coach was the home opener on October 2, 2013, a 6–1 win over the Anaheim Ducks, where Roy got into a shouting match with Ducks Head Coach Bruce Boudreau and nearly broke the partition separating the two teams' benches.[40] Roy won his first six games as a rookie coach, coincidentally tying Mario Tremblay, his former coach with whom he had a feuding relationship, for the most consecutive wins at the beginning of a NHL coaching career.[41]

In the 2013–14 season, Colorado racked up 112 points, won the Central Division title, tied a franchise record with 52 wins, posted the NHL's best road record (26–11–4) and had zero regulation losses when leading after two periods (35–0–3). For his team's success, Roy won the Jack Adams Award for the NHL's top coach, winning the honour over the Detroit Red Wings' Mike Babcock and the Tampa Bay Lightning's Jon Cooper.[42][43]

During the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs, Roy became known as the hero on more than one occasion when he pulled Semyon Varlamov with nearly three minutes remaining in the game. The team would later score to tie it and win in overtime for two of the three times that he pulled the Russian goaltender. Even other coaches in the league, such as the Ducks' Bruce Boudreau, took advantage to Roy's scheme and complimented him for the idea. However, the heavily favoured #2 seed Avs did lose in the first round to the #7 seed Minnesota Wild at home in the seventh game.

The following season, the Avs regressed significantly, finishing last (seventh) in their division for only the second time in the history of the organization.

On August 11, 2016, Roy, citing a lack of input in personnel decisions, stepped down as the head coach and vice-president of hockey operations for the Avalanche, and was subsequently replaced by Jared Bednar.[44]

• His jersey number 30 has been retired by the Granby Bisons
• His jersey number 33 has been retired by the Colorado Avalanche and the Montreal Canadiens
• In 1998, he was ranked number 22 on The Hockey News' list of the 100 Greatest Hockey Players
• The Colorado Sports Hall of Fame 2004
• Quebec Major Junior Hockey League Hall of Fame 2004
• Hockey Hall of Fame inductee 2006
• Was ranked #5 in The Hockey News' The Top 60 Since 1967 – the best players of the post-expansion era

• Most NHL playoff games played by a goaltender (247) (third most playoff games of all players)
• Most NHL playoff wins by a goaltender (151)
• First NHL goaltender to play 1,000 NHL games (finished with 1,029 games, later passed by Martin Brodeur)
• First NHL goaltender to win 500 games
• Most Conn Smythe Trophy wins — 3

Engravings of the 2001 Colorado Avalanche on the Stanley Cup. Roy's name is engraved on the second last row of names.

• Calder Cup — 1985
• Stanley Cup — 1986, 1993 (Montreal); 1996, 2001 (Colorado)
• Conn Smythe Trophy — 1986, 1993, 2001
• William M. Jennings Trophy — 1987*, 1988*, 1989*, 1992, 2002
• Vezina Trophy — 1989, 1990, 1992
• NHL All-Star Game — 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
• NHL First All-Star Team — 1989, 1990, 1992, 2002
• NHL Second All-Star Team — 1988, 1991
• NHL All-Rookie Team — 1986
• Trico Goaltending Award — 1989, 1990
• The Colorado Avalanche retired Roy's number 33 jersey on October 28, 2003
• The Montreal Canadiens retired Roy's number 33 jersey on November 22, 2008

* Shared with Brian Hayward

• Memorial Cup — with Quebec Remparts in 2006
• Jack Adams Award — 2014