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By HOWARD BERGER

TORONTO (Nov. 24) – Having watched New York Islanders’ goalie Dwayne Roloson contort his aging body to stop 58 shots at the Air Canada Centre Monday night, it would be easy to assume he had just enjoyed the finest hour of his career against the Maple Leafs.

Not so.

Though Roloson has tended goal for several clubs since breaking into NHL with Calgary in 1996-97, he may have been responsible for keeping the Leafs out of the 1999 Stanley Cup final. Here’s how:

When the Leafs and Buffalo Sabres appeared for the warm-up prior to Game 1 of the ’99 Eastern Conference championship at the ACC, the most spectacular player on either club was nowhere to be seen. It was an afternoon start for the benefit FOX-TV in the United States on Sunday, May 23^rd, 1999.

In Pat Quinn’s first season behind the bench, the Leafs had knocked off Philadelphia in six games during a bizarre opening-round series, scoring only nine goals on Flyers’ netminder John Vanbiesbrouck – a record-low for a team advancing in a six-game affair. Philly scored 11 goals on Curtis Joseph, but got five of them in one match. Toronto won the series at the Wachovia Center [then called First Union Center] when Russian winger Sergei Berezin broke a scoreless deadlock with a powerplay goal in the final minute of regulation time. Flyers’ owner Ed Snider almost had a nervous breakdown after the game, blowing a gasket on referee Terry Gregson [now the NHL’s officiating director] for calling the decisive elbowing penalty against John LeClair.

I’ll never forget Gregson walking past me as he left the arena surrounded by a half-dozen beefy security guards. Extending from the midst of that bulk was a lone arm, belonging to the referee. “Hello Howard,” I heard Terry say from somewhere in the security huddle. I didn’t dare extend my arm in return, offering Gregson a wave.

In the second round that spring, the Leafs defeated Jaromir Jagr and the Pittsburgh Penguins, also in six games, and mostly by virtue of their success at Mellon Arena. Games 4 and 6 of the series – in Pittsburgh – went into overtime, and the Leafs prevailed on each occasion. Berezin popped the winner in Game 4, tying the best-of-seven at 2-2. The Leafs clobbered the Penguins, 4-1, in the pivotal fifth match at the ACC, and then battled through a see-saw Game 6 that ended deadlocked, 3-3, after regulation.

Early in the first extra period, Toronto’s Yanic Perreault cleanly won a face-off from Jan Hrdina in the Penguins’ zone and drew the puck back toward Berezin, who fired at Tom Barrasso. The Penguins’ goalie accidentally stepped on the puck and dragged it into the crease where defenseman Jiri Slegr sprawled and crashed into Barrasso, knocking him out of position. Leafs’ low-scoring winger, Garry Valk, happily availed himself of the clumsy play and swept a loose puck into the yawning Pittsburgh goal to end the series, and send the Leafs to the conference final against Buffalo.

That brings us back to Roloson.

In the six-day span between the Pittsburgh and Buffalo series, there had been no indication that Sabres’ goalie Dominik Hasek was injured. The two-time defending recipient of the Hart Trophy [1997 and 1998] arrived in Toronto with the Sabres the day before the series and was expected to duel Joseph in a fierce goaltending battle. But, when the Leafs and Sabres skated out for the pre-game warm-up the following afternoon, a buzz quickly spread through the ACC as Hasek was nowhere to be seen. Those of us in the press box quickly learned that the Czech-born goalie would miss the game with a groin injury, and that his status for the remainder of the series would be determined on a day-by-day basis.

It fell upon the unheralded Roloson to start the conference final for Buffalo.

Calgary had let him go after the 1997-98 season and the Simcoe, Ont. native signed as a free agent with the Sabres. He spelled Hasek on only 18 occasions in 1998-99, posting a 6-8-2 record and 2.99 goals-against average. When compared to Hasek’s 30-18-14 mark, and sparkling 1.87 GAA, it appeared the Sabres could be instant playoff fodder for the Maple Leafs. But, teams that extend a championship drought beyond three decades invariably miss opportunities along the way, and the ’99 Leafs were no exception.

In an undisciplined, wide-open game – the sort of match Buffalo was not accustomed to – Roloson, 29, yielded three powerplay goals but somehow prevailed over Joseph, 5-4, to give the Sabres the all-important jump in the series. It was Roloson’s first career playoff victory and it provided an emotional boost that carried Buffalo to an easy five-game elimination of the Maple Leafs. “All of a sudden we look, and one of the best goalies in the world isn’t playing,” Toronto defenseman Dmitri Yushkevich had said after the opener, shaking his head in the stunned Leafs’ dressing room. “We probably thought we were going to win easily. It’s hard to fight that kind of feeling.”

Exactly 10½ years to the day later – also at the ACC – the Leafs surely had the same feeling as they swarmed a 40-year-old Roloson. With the Islanders pooped out at the end of a seven-game road trip, Roloson was left virtually on his own to thwart a record-tying Leafs’ attack. And, he performed miraculously. Toronto came at him in waves, poring 61 shots at the Islanders’ net, equaling an all-time club record established against Detroit – at Maple Leaf Gardens – on Feb. 25, 1976. That night, Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Borje Salming and company had obliterated the Red Wings, 8-0.

On this night – almost 34 years later – Roloson got in the way of 58 Leaf attempts and was solely responsible for a 4-3 Islanders’ victory in overtime: a thoroughly stunning example of deja vu.

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