David Aebischer’s arrogance, always expressed more in body language than words, has returned.
The puck again looks normal-sized to him, rather than as small as a BB.
“When you’re down, on some days it’s really bad,” the soft-spoken Avalanche goalie said after practice Sunday. “You’re mad at the world, you’re mad at yourself. And then some days, you say, ‘It’s going to be all right. You’re going to come out of it.’
“It’s been a little bit of an up-and-down battle. But down at the bottom, you know what you did before, you can do again.”
Aebischer’s revitalization as Colorado’s No. 1 goaltender has been the most important element of the Avalanche’s four-game winning streak, and he will be in the net again tonight against the St. Louis Blues.
Just as important, his coach – Joel Quenneville, whose nurturing ability never has stretched into his own team’s crease – has stopped showing signs of desperately trying to find an alternative to Aebischer.
It was so bad and so blatant there for a few weeks, it was natural to wonder whether Quenneville was working back channels to see if he could get the U.S. government to revoke his Swiss goaltender’s visa.
Quenneville waves that off as giving farmhand Vitaly Kolesnik a shot, and that’s what he has to say, but the true motivation was his exasperation with, and lack of faith in, Aebischer.
That’s over.
For now.
If only because neither Kolesnik nor Peter Budaj stepped in and secured the job, Aebischer got another chance, and took advantage of it.
That was not Quenneville’s master plan, either. It just happened. So the “peace” is tenuous.
There will be more nights when Aebischer stinks up the building, and probably when Quenneville gets out the hook. The test then will be whether both men can do a better job of having the short memories so often required in sport, enabling Aebischer to bounce back and Quenneville to increase the chances of that happening.
An Avalanche trade for a high-profile goaltender, whether Florida’s Roberto Luongo or anyone else, before the March 9 deadline can’t be ruled out. (Regardless of what anyone says.)
Yes, the Avalanche is at the upper fringes of the salary cap. Yet imaginative juggling, involving maneuvering to balance salaries, still might turn out to be possible for Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix and his brethren in similar situations.
The safest assumption, though, still is that the Avalanche will stand pat in net.
In fact, Quenneville should be operating on that plan.
For one thing, if his handling of the goaltenders so fouls them up that a deal has to be made due to panic rather than calculated reasoning, that’s a lose-lose proposition for this franchise.
And along those lines, the 2005-06 Avs have a far better chance of getting the most out of what they have if Quenneville gets into a more coherent goaltending rotation, with Aebischer playing roughly two out of every three games, and Budaj playing when the rigors of an Olympic-season schedule demand.
Quenneville should back away from his tendency to play and stick with a goalie until he has a bad game, because that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. There should be a comfort level there, not to the point of complacency, but at least allowing Aebischer to be something other than a basket case.
“You have to show everybody that you’re confident you’re going to stop the puck,” Aebischer said. “You can be cocky, but I think it’s a fine line, too. You can’t be overconfident, but you have to see yourself stopping the puck.”
Making order of the chaos in the net is crucial. That isn’t a news flash. However, the Avalanche has not turned that much-discussed “corner.” That’s because wins over Phoenix, Nashville, Minnesota and Columbus aren’t of shoot-off-the-fireworks significance. The Avalanche still is what it was two weeks ago: A good – not great – team capable of lighting it up in streaks, and perhaps even advancing a couple of rounds in the playoffs.
The Avalanche’s problem hasn’t been goal-scoring. Colorado has the most goals in the Western Conference. The Avs’ frequent ineffective play in their end can’t be solely explained by the new anti-obstruction standards and rules, and the goaltending mess has compounded the problem.
Despite the number-crunching, the best move for this team still would be the acquisition of an upper-tier, two-way forward who makes the Avs even more of a threat on offense – in essence, further tipping the ice the other way.
Short-term, though, the priority should be to keep Aebischer’s mask on straight.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
