Colorado Avalanche: Patrick Roy’s Statue of Liberty Move

Though disastrous at the time, Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy’s Statue of Liberty play exemplified the kind of attitude that made Roy a Hockey Hall of Famer.

Colorado Avalanche goalies have always had to be game-stealers. As far back as when the team came from Quebec to Colorado, the style of play relies on outstanding goal tending.

I’ve often opined that the reason for that over-reliance on goal tending is because of the Patrick Roy trade. When he came to Colorado, the rest of the team was able to relax and do the scoring thing, which is way more fun than defense anyway. Especially when you’re Joe Sakic or Peter Forsberg. Or even Sandis Ozolinsh, to be honest.

Ever since then, the Avs have often gone how the goal tending goes. Why, even the very last game Colorado played recently, Game 6 against the Predators, went the way of the goalie. Poor Andrew Hammond was weak early, and that was the game — no matter how much Nathan MacKinnon the Avs bench threw at the Preds.

The point is, no matter what else you say about Patrick Roy, he was a great goalie. He was beyond great, actually — he was legendary. And today, we’re going to look at one of his most legendary moments — his Statue of Liberty play.

Stay with me — I know that play was a gaffe. Before we get to why that was a seminal moment for Roy’s legend, let’s look at the play itself.

Statue of Liberty Play

It was Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. The Colorado Avalanche were hosting the Detroit Red Wings at the Pepsi Center. The game was scoreless in the waning moments of the first period.

Red Wings captain Steve Yzerman tried to sweep the puck past Roy, but he sprawled to make the save. The Red Wings went after the puck, and Yzerman swooped in again. Roy stoned him again, catching it in his glove.

Here’s where the Statue of Liberty moment came. Patrick Roy stood up with the puck in his glove (which means the official should have whistled the play dead). As he lifted his glove in a celebratory Statue of Liberty pose, the puck skittered down his arm and across the crease into the net:

Brendan Shanahan celebrated like he’d suspended an Avalanche player for playing hockey (which he would soon be doing). Roy dropped his head into his gloves — there’s nothing that man hated more than seeing the puck go into his net.

The Avalanche went on to lose the game and the series. That said, Patrick Roy did not shirk his post-game presser responsibilities. According to Jim Kelley of Sportsnet, Roy “answered most every question with a steely gaze at the questioner and a rock-solid belief that he had done no wrong.” He also dismissed criticism of the miscue by asking, “What goal? Which one do you mean?”

I can well envision both his stare and the quiet menace in his voice (3:30):

I’ll bet money, too, that the reporter backed down just like the one in the above clip did.

Patrick Roy’s Legend

If you could identify exactly what makes a good goalie great and a great goalie legendary, you could start a hockey school. Of course, there are some obvious characteristics. A goalie has to display good positioning and ability to track the puck as well as mobility, athleticism and flexibility.

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Those characteristics make for a good goalie. To make him great, you need to add mental toughness and compete as well as an elite level of the above skills.

And what makes a great goalie legendary? Well, there is no one characteristic. However, in Patrick Roy’s case it was his Stanley Cup attitude. And by that I mean his confidence bordering on arrogance — and you could call me out on the “bordering on” and be correct.

When you think of Patrick Roy as a goalie, you may think about his four Stanley Cups, his three Vezina Trophies and three Conn Smyth Trophies. Just like when you think of Martin Brodeur you think about his three Stanley Cups, one Calder Trophy and four Vezinas.

But when you imagine Patrick Roy the legend, you think about Le Trade and Le Wink, the time he deked Gretzky, “No more rats” and maybe even the time he demolished his net in fury. And you think of the Statue of Liberty move.

All of those were by-products of his arrogance. It was the arrogance that a great goalie needed to ramp up his play in the bigger games. The bigger the game, the better Patrick Roy played. And you don’t achieve that with great positioning or mental fortitude.

You achieve that with an elite level of compete, an ability to stay in the moment. And, yes, the arrogance to believe in your skills no matter what else is going on around you.

We’ve all seen it — players hesitant to take a chance because they lost their nerve. We saw it two seasons ago when Blake Comeau passed on a breakaway because he did not want to be responsible for the play. Bad enough when you do that as a skater — it’s disastrous for a goalie. It happened to Hammond in Game 6. Hell, it happened to Reto Berra in his Avalanche debut.

I daresay it even happened a little to Marc-Andre Fleury in the Stanley Cup playoffs this year. That level of arrogance takes a toll.

That Statue of Liberty play sucked in the moment for the Colorado Avalanche. To happen in Pepsi Center against the  most-hated of teams, the Detroit Red Wings added insult to injury.

Overall, though, that elite level of compete is what drove Patrick Roy. It’s how he found the fortitude to backstop Colorado to its first-ever sports championship and later get Ray Bourque his Stanley Cup.

And, yes, he own-goaled. But that’s all part of the legend — part of Colorado Avalanche legend. And you should always love your history.