Goaltenders are a strange breed.

Patrick Roy could make a strong case as the strangest of all.

But for Roy, strangeness breeds success.

You never know what you're going to see when Roy skates into the crease for the Colorado Avalanche. Most of the time Roy is completely focused on the task at hand. He can make the most difficult saves look easy.

And then there are those other nights when Roy is, well, shall we say "goofy?" We shall say goofy.

On these rare occasions Roy can be found wandering out of his net - a lot. He tries to play keep-away with the puck from forecheckers. He'll rub out forwards against the boards. He'll hack and whack and twitch like hell when an opponent gets anywhere near his crease.

Roy can be one kooky bird. Case in point: The Avalanche's 5-2 win Saturday against Edmonton.

St. Patrick made 30 saves in the game in his usual effortless manner. But by the end of the game, the ease of the contest seemed to make Roy bored. So bored that when the Oilers pulled goaltender Bob Essensa for an extra attacker and hoped to put more pressure on Roy, the Colorado netminder turned the tables and put the pressure on Edmonton.

Roy, who has never scored a goal, tried his hardest to do so Saturday night in front of the home crowd in Colorado. As soon as the Oilers dumped the puck in, Roy was jolly on the spot to corral it and send it back down the other direction. Roy didn't just fire it from his crease or from behind the goal line. He skated out into the faceoff circles and launched it. And when that didn't work, Roy smacked his stick on the ice and called for passes from his own defensemen so he could try it again. Roy also played catch with a defenseman behind his own net before attempting to score at the other end.

"I guess they respect my shot because they were all ready at the blue line," Roy told reporters after the game. "I tried (to score). I had my chances, I guess. Maybe it's going to come one day. I guess (the fans) enjoyed it as much as I did. It was a thrill for me."

Roy didn't get a goal that night, but he did pick up an assist on Shjon Podein's empty-netter in the 5-2 win.

Just another day in the life of Patrick Roy. If the game fails to gain his attention, he'll make some excitement of his own to entertain.

When you're the all-time winningest goaltender in National Hockey League history, I guess you're allowed to take some chances and do some unorthodox things.

Roy recently passed Jacques Plante to move into first place on the all-time win list. Roy has 407 career regular season wins to go along with his record 99 playoff victories. His total of 506 puts him one ahead of Plante, who played from 1952 to 1975 with six different teams.

Plante was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1978. Roy surely will join Plante when his career is over. But when will the 33-year-old veteran hang up the mask? Not at least for another two seasons. The 15-year veteran signed a two-year contract extension earlier this season that will pay him $7 million in 2000 and $9 million in 2001. And with the way Roy is playing these days, the end of the road still might be a few more years after that.

"I'm going to play till I enjoy myself, until I'm going to perform well," the French-Canadian said. "And I think it's better to take it a year at a time and not start thinking about when I'm going to retire and all that."

Ok, but when Roy does retire, he's going to go in wearing an Avalanche jersey, right? After that whole mess he got into his final days as a Montreal Canadien, he must not want to go being remembered as a member of Les Habitants...

"If you ask me today which jersey I would wear, it probably would be the Montreal Canadiens if I had to," Roy said matter of factly. "But if I play another four, five, or six years and we win a few Stanley Cups (in Colorado), it might be a different question at the time."

The way Roy is playing this season, there's a strong possibility that Colorado Cup No. 2 could be won this season. Roy currently has a 2.31 goals-against average, which is lower than is career low set in 1996-97 (2.32). He's won 27 games and has collected five shutouts.

Roy said he's playing some of the best hockey of his career right now. That's a far cry from where Roy was at the beginning of the year, when Roy and the Avs struggled for weeks to win their first game of the season.

"If I take away the my start of my season, I think I am having one of my best seasons," he said. "What I mean by that is, I've been playing consistent. "Let's say after that first maybe seven or eight starts, I played with some consistency from there. It was a tough start. It was a really slow start, but since then, things have turned around really well for me."

The Avalanche haven't had to depend on Roy recently with the addition of Theo Fleury to an already powerful offense. Since his trade from Calgary, Fleury has teamed up with Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg to create one of the most dominant trios the league has seen in quite some time.

But the Avalanche know that when the game is on the line, Roy will be there. And he will be focused.

And maybe, if the Avs have a one-goal lead and an empty net at the other end in the Stanley Cup finals, Roy will get another chance for that elusive goal.

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