Curtis Joseph isn't the only NHL goaltender with a big contract waiting to be moved.

Arturs Irbe has been exiled by the Carolina Hurricanes, barred from showing up at training camp while general manager Jim Rutherford finds a way to trade the 36-year-old netminder.

The problem is that Irbe has a guaranteed contract that pays him $2.7 million US this season and $2.5 million in 2004-05.

"We offered a buyout which he did not accept," Rutherford said Friday from Florida where the Hurricanes opened pre-season.

"It's difficult buying a player out of long-term contracts. His agent had permission to talk to teams during the summer and nothing came of that. So Arturs will go to Lowell's (AHL) training camp next week."

Irbe first donned the Lowell Lock Monsters uniform last season when the Hurricanes demoted him in February, defusing a goaltending controversy that started back in October when Irbe openly asked to be traded after losing his No. 1 job to Kevin Weekes.

What made matters even stranger was that both goalies are represented by the same agent, Paul Theofanous.

"In this business there's a lot of people that wish bad things on other people," Theofanous said Friday from New York. "But Archie and Kevin are good friends, neither would wish anything bad on one another.

"Kevin's the goalie for the Hurricanes for the future and for today and Archie is happy for him."

Weekes, 28, returns as the No. 1 man this season with 23-year-old Patrick DesRochers, a 1998 first-round pick by Phoenix, handed the backup job.

"We decided to go younger," Rutherford said. "We've got Weekes and DesRochers and that's the direction we want to go."

In the meantime, Rutherford has told teams around the league that Irbe can be had at a bargain-basement price and that Carolina will pick up some of his contract.

"We're not even looking for any kind of compensation in return," Rutherford said. "We just want to give him an opportunity to continue his career. It's not like we're going to hold this up by even asking for a draft pick.

"But if nothing happens he'll play in the American Hockey League."

Don't get him wrong, Rutherford still has tremendous respect for the little Latvian, but this is just business. The Hurricanes are rebuilding and Irbe doesn't fit.

"He's been a good player for us over the years and given us good service," Rutherford said of Irbe, who played five seasons in Carolina. "I still believe he can play but we just decided to make a change at that position."

It was just two seasons ago that Irbe lifted the Hurricanes past Montreal and Toronto and into the Stanley Cup final. But he struggled to a 7-24-2 record with a lofty 3.18 goals-against average last season, and Carolina decided to turn the page.

"Archie will come back," said Theofanous. "You can't knock him down. He's not done."

Irbe did end his season on a high note, backstopping Latvia to yet another emotional win over Russia at the world hockey championship in Finland, a game in which he looked like the Irbe of old.

"Usually what happens with him, when he gets pushed or backed into a corner and wants to prove a point _ and that's happened to him every time he's changed teams _ is that he's had real good seasons," Rutherford said. "The timing for somebody to pick him up, somebody that's looking for a goalie, I think they would get a great year out of him."

Irbe will be exposed in the Oct. 3 NHL waiver draft but Rutherford would be shocked to see him claimed.

"Teams know they can make a deal for him with us picking up part of his salary," Rutherford said. "If they take him in the waiver draft than they'll have to take all of it. So it's highly unlikely anyone will take him there."

Irbe is ready to wait it out.

"Some other team will run into trouble, it could be in January, it could be next month, it could be next week," said Theofanous. "But this guy is a known quantity."