Dwayne Roloson

Dwayne Roloson was born on October 12, 1969, in Simcoe, Ontario, and spent 606 NHL games tending goal — a career that stretched long enough to include one of the more dramatic deadline-day trades in recent memory. Standing 6'1" and weighing 170 pounds, the left-catching netminder finished his playing days with 227 wins, 29 shutouts, a 2.72 goals-against average, and a .908 save percentage before retiring in 2012.

The defining chapter of his playing career arrived at the 2006 NHL Trade Deadline, when he was dealt to the Edmonton Oilers. He had not enjoyed playing in Edmonton prior to the trade — he has described the rink as a tough environment — but he worked to reframe that discomfort, and the results followed. He backstopped the Oilers to the Stanley Cup Final that spring, drawing attention as a Conn Smythe Trophy candidate before suffering an injury in Game 1 against the Carolina Hurricanes ^[1].

Since retiring, Roloson has worked as a goaltending coach, and that experience informs the mental framework he now teaches. On Episode 301 of the InGoal Radio Podcast ^[2], he discussed how shot volume — whether a goalie faces 18 shots or 50 — creates its own psychological challenges. He recalled conversations with Dominik Hašek, who struggled after being traded to Detroit because he was accustomed to facing 30, 40, or 50 shots a night and suddenly found himself seeing far fewer. Roloson drew a parallel to Curtis Joseph's adjustment upon arriving in Detroit from Toronto ^[1].

To address these challenges, Roloson uses two concepts he describes as "framing" and "parking." As he explained, framing involves finding a positive perspective on circumstances outside a goalie's control. Parking — the phrase he repeats to goalie students as "park it, park it, park it" — is a technique for setting aside distracting thoughts and returning focus to the puck, particularly in low-shot environments where attention tends to drift ^[1]. "The low-shot environment is where you use parking," he said. "It's not, 'Well, I haven't seen a shot in 10 minutes.' It's 'park it, park it, park it. Let's focus. Let's focus on the puck'" ^[1].

His own record in high-shot games is documented: he appeared five times on the list of NHL goalies facing 50 or more shots in a regular-season game, posting a 3-2 record with a .934 save percentage in those outings. His busiest game came with the New York Islanders, a 61-shot, 4-3 win over Toronto — the 18th-highest shot total in NHL history at the time of that accounting ^[1].

InGoal Magazine has covered Dwayne Roloson in one podcast appearance and one InGoal article.