If it's fair to argue that hockey goalie is the hardest position in professional sports, then the role of backup goalie in the NHL might be even harder, though not as hard as it used to be.
The first argument is based on goalies facing the same game-on-your-shoulders pressure of a football quarterback or baseball pitcher, but without any of their ability to control or dictate the play coming at them.
Now imagine doing the same job, with the same pressure, against the best shooters in the world, after sitting on the bench for 10 days.
That's the life of an NHL backup goalie. And while those waits between games aren't as long as they used to be even a decade ago, when No. 1 goalies started more than 60 games and the best got into the 70s, the waits still come with a lot of uncertainty for the backup.
"If I don't play well this game, when am I going to play next?" Winnipeg Jets backup Eric Comrie said of the challenges of the job. "You can put a lot of pressure on yourself thinking that way, so you have find the mental ability to just go out there and play your game and be comfortable in your game and trust your game, and not worry about the results and not say to yourself, 'When am I going to play next if I have a bad game?'"
Those wait times have shrunk during the past 10 seasons as more teams trend toward tandems and a shared workload, and the best in the League play close to 60 games instead of 70.
Gone are the days 15 years ago when a lot of workhorse No. 1 goalies left roughly one game per month for a backup, but that hasn't made the task a lot easier for those goalies sitting for extended periods between starts. It's a list that includes Comrie playing behind Connor Hellebuyck, who is on pace to play 63 games this season.
Hellebuyck entered play Thursday tied with Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Tampa Bay Lightning for the NHL lead with 53 games played, and could finish in the top three in games played for the seventh straight season.
Casey DeSmith knows what that can be like playing behind Jake Oettinger with the Dallas Stars. Oettinger is tied for eighth in games played (49) so far this season, and is on pace for 60 starts. That leaves 22 games for DeSmith, roughly one every nine days.
"The confidence issue, and if you have a bad one not getting right back in is the hardest part," said DeSmith, who has handled that challenge well in his first season with the Stars, going 12-6-0 with a .914 save percentage in 20 games (18 starts). "If a starter has a bad game, he's right back in. He bounces back. He forgets about that last one. For me, maybe I don't get in for another week and a half or two weeks, and now I have to use that negative result as fuel and I'm always looking forward to that next start, but I don't know when it's going to be."
Those waits make it harder to maintain the timing and feel of game action.
"The hardest part is definitely finding that game rhythm," Comrie said.
For that reason, the role often is better suited to a more technical goalie, one that relies less on the feel and timing that comes with extra movement and flow. A goalie who is in position to have pucks hit him even when he isn't feeling atop his game can buy time to work off the rust after a long stretch on the bench. A goalie who plays aggressively and relies more on rhythm tends to be more exposed when timing is off.
The extra practice time that comes with being a backup also can be problematic because so much of it is focused on the shooters, who often are left with more time and space to pick corners or make late lateral passes to streaking teammates off the rush than a goalie ever would face in a game. The job description for backup goalies also includes staying late at the end of practice, effectively serving as a target.
"I don't struggle with this, but it could be hard to keep your focus and work ethic up, as far as day-in, day-out, practice," DeSmith said. "That could be an issue for certain guys."
The problem is stopping pucks in wide-open practice situations sometimes requires a different approach than playing a game. And facing hundreds of those types of shots every day while waiting a week or two between starts can lead to bad habits.
That's where a good goalie coach helps by finding a balance between knowing part of the job is to be there as a target for teammates and making sure there are enough game-like and feel-good drills to keep the backup ready between starts.
"A goalie coach can give you a lot of confidence going into games," Comrie said.
So can watching -- and talking to -- one of the best goalies in the world on the bench.
"Honestly, having [Hellebuyck] helps a lot too," Comrie said. "It's weird to say, but we share more information than any goalie partner I've ever had. We watch video together as a team of three [with goalie coach Wade Flaherty], and he chats with me the whole game, comes to the bench and breaks down his game. When you get to play and watch the best goalie in the world every single night, things rub off. He tells you why he's doing certain things and you can add them into your game. It's sort of like playing. You absorb it through him."
