"It's tough to break into the Toronto roster," Barabanov said. "Many factors have to come together. During negotiations, they can tell you that you're going to play one position, and then, like in my case, it turns out not to be the case.
I played five minutes in the first game, and in the second, four minutes. After that, I called [agent] Dan [Milstein] and asked what I was doing wrong. But the team had a great scout, Jim [Roque], who communicated with me helpfully and told me that I needed to play at least 20 games to understand what kind of league this was. But then they traded me to San Jose, where I played 18 minutes a game. And I realized that you can easily play that much time."
