"Big egos have small ears. No one will ever accuse Brian Elliott of having small ears.

"One of the things that you learn about 'Ells' is he's a really good listener," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said. "He's resurrected a career based on being able to look in the mirror and make adjustments."

The alterations aren't about character or drive. Elliott has spent his hockey-playing life as an afterthought, the odd man out. It was that way in college, where he came out of a backup shadow to lead the University of Wisconsin-Madison to a national championship.

It was like that in the NHL draft, when he was taken 291st by Ottawa, the second to last player chosen in 2003. He couldn't even finish first for finishing last. No, Elliott has never lacked for resilience.

"He's a great model for, 'stay with it, you never know when this is going to change,'" Hitchcock added. "It wasn't his work ethic. It wasn't his determination. It wasn't his conditioning. There were some things that had to change in his game."

Elliott ascended to a position of favor in Ottawa, a trusted goaltender who played 55 games and had 29 wins for the Senators in 2009-10. He carried a .909 save percentage that season, and carried a hockey-impassioned city's seal of approval. Some things sabotaged all that.

Things that turned Elliott's record into 13-19-8 the following season and got him traded to Colorado, where he won just two of 11 starts. Things that shrunk his save percentage to a frightful .891. Things that caused the press to bury him and left him jobless at season's end. Things were out of whack.

"I'm probably roughest on myself, more so than anybody else could be on me," Elliott, 26, said. "I sometimes have to look in the mirror and realize, 'You have to pick it up or you're not going to be in the league long.' The best advice I ever got was, 'It's tough to get there and even tougher to stay.'"