There’s No Masking Fiset’s Ambition

Apparently, winning a Stanley Cup is so awful that Stephane Fiset had to ask for a trade.

But sometimes failure is not measured by how far one lands from his dreams, but how close.

Fiset was too close.

Fiset, a goalie acquired by the Kings during the off-season for left wing Eric LaCroix, had long dreamed of playing on a Stanley Cup winner. But when his team, the Colorado Avalanche, won it last season, he was on the bench.

It didn’t start out that way. Heading into last season, Fiset was the top goalie for a team that seemed on the verge of becoming one of the NHL’s elite teams. Then, on Dec. 6, the Avalanche acquired Patrick Roy.

“I was frustrated for sure,” Fiset said. “I thought Jocelyn [Thibault] and I were doing the job. But if you get a chance to put a hand on Patrick, you take it. [Avalanche General Manager] Pierre [LaCroix] and [Coach Marc] Crawford talked to me. They were fair, and I understood.”

Still, Fiset had given all of himself for seven years, and the first six of those seven were with some dreadful teams when the franchise was in Quebec.

So dreadful, that Eric Lindros refused to play for the Nordiques when they made him the top pick of the 1991 draft.

New fans of the Avalanche may want to thank Lindros.

The team eventually traded the rights to Lindros to Philadelphia for six players and two first-round draft picks. Almost immediately, the floundering franchise was on its way--out of the cellar and out of Quebec.

Then to the delight of everyone not named Fiset, Roy was acquired.

Instead of sulking, however, Fiset saw an opportunity.

“I never imagined myself winning the Cup,” he said. “I could have asked for a trade, but then I might not have had the chance. After talking to Crawford, everything was a positive. Plus, you never know--if Patrick got hurt, I might have been the MVP, so it would have been a mistake [to pout].”

Fiset played only one minute during the playoffs but considered himself an important part of the team’s run for the Cup.

“When you win, it’s a team--not one or two,” he said. “Sometimes players would come up to me and say, ‘How can I beat this goalie?’ and I would give them tips. I would watch the players on the other teams. I would watch our players and maybe give suggestions.”

Fiset said he also learned a lot from Roy--how to deal with the media, how to approach the game, and other intangibles.

And years from now, Fiset contends, his name will still be on the Cup.

But he also knows he didn’t have the whole experience.

“Now that I have won one, I want to win it again so badly. But I want to be the one.”

So he asked for a trade.

And here he is with the 1996-97 Kings, rated PG.

As in post-Gretzky.

Not exactly the team that leaps to mind when people are speaking about the Cup. But there will be seasons after this one.

“Hey, I’m not the only new face around here,” Fiset said. “We’re young but I think we have a little of everything--good speed, good defense and [smiling broadly] great goalies.”

Although Fiset is the No. 1 goalie, his backup, Byron Dafoe has a full season of NHL play behind him. Jamie Storr was the team’s top pick--seventh overall--in the 1994 draft but has been sent to the Phoenix Roadrunners in the International Hockey League.

“We talk and we’re friends, but we have to get it done on the ice,” Fiset said. “If I want to be the No. 1 goalie, I have to stop the puck.”

Fiset, 26, also says he will provide tips on how to get the puck past Roy and other top goalies he has had the chance to study.

But he has no plans to study this year.

“The parade through Denver--that feeling was the best part,” he said. “It was like saying, ‘Thank you.’ I just want to feel that again. It was for Quebec too. We should have won once for them before we left.”