Patrick Roy changes his personality but not his game.(The Gazette)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. _ The memory brings a smile to Patrick Roy's face, the sheer audacity of a gesture from another time. It was Game 4 of the 1993 Stanley Cup Finals, Roy playing for Montreal, when he made a save and made it unforgettable by winking at the shooter, Los Angeles' Tomas Sandstrom.

It became Roy's signature for a time, the cockiness so loved by his teammates and detested by his opponents. His reputation lived for years on that one wink.

"Why I did that, I don't know," Roy said. "I felt like that day there was nothing that would go by me. At the time, I guess I was not afraid to express the way I felt."

Talking about that moment eight years later, while preparing for practice on an off day of this Stanley Cup Finals, it still made him smile and marvel at the change in himself. He is older now, 35, and wearing a Colorado Avalanche jersey, but it's more than that.

Roy would never do that now, wink at a shooter or tell someone he couldn't hear them because he had two Stanley Cup rings in his ears - as he told Jeremy Roenick before he had won the third with the Avs in `96.

This Patrick Roy, the one driving the Avs through these playoffs and positioning them two wins over New Jersey from another Cup, has turned boring compared to his younger self. He is every bit as sharp on the ice, but has dulled his edge off it. He makes no more public challenges, to his team or opponents. He hasn't blasted anyone. And he won't.

"Because I realize it doesn't give me much," Roy said. "I am only focused on the game in front of me."