Jose Theodore

Let us discuss for a moment... Jose Theodore. 30 year old, 5 foot 11 inch tall Colorado Avalanche goaltender. Started last season as the Avs #1 guy. Ended the season as the Avs backup guy. In 2002 he won the Hart Trophy, which is awarded to the league's Most Valuable Player. Only 6 goaltenders have ever done that. So there IS something to this guy. I've liked him for several years, thought he was a really good goaltender. Solid, dependable, that sort of thing. And then he had a bad season with a few injuries (like a cracked heel-bone from slipping on some ice outside his apartment in Montreal before he came to Colorado). He has yet to recover.

Can he?

I say yes. I think that Jose Theodore is more than capable of recovering himself from the downward spiral and coming back to be better than he was. He's not going to do it with any mamby-pamby molly-coddling, that's for sure. I think that he needs his team to stand up in front of him and help him to have a run of good games, but they have to be games in which he works. Winning a game when there were only 20 shots on goal isn't going to cut it. He needs a run of wins vs. 40-50 shots. A run that will bring his confidence back. After all, confidence is key to a solid goaltender. Look at Patrick Roy for example. Yeah, he fucked up a time or two, but it didn't stop him from being an arrogant bastard, did it? That's the attitude that a goaltender needs. That's the attitude that I WANT in my goaltender.

I look forward to watching the upcoming season. I have no doubt that Peter Budaj will start the season as the Avs #1 goaltender. No doubt at all. But I do hope that Theodore can find the confidence in himself to steal that position away from Budaj (much as I love Budaj).

A little sidebar on Theodore... I'm one of those people who watches the players go onto the ice at the end of the game to acknowledge the goaltender w/ the traditional pat on the head or whatever. When Budaj and Kolesnik were taking the #1 spot away from Aebischer the season before last, I noticed that Aebi was very... unhappy when his fellow netminders had a good game. Last season, when it was between Theo and Budaj, I noticed that no matter how badly Theodore's game had been the night before or whatever, he was all smiles for Budaj's win. I like that. It makes me like and respect Jose that much more.