CALGARY — Denver native John Grahame doesn’t like the way his call-up to the Avalanche came about, but if he gets a chance to re-establish himself as deserving of being back in the NHL — with someone — he’ll accept it.
“You never wish anything like that to happen to anybody,” Grahame said of the injury Craig Anderson suffered in the warmup at Vancouver Tuesday. “Honestly, I think that’s kind of why was brought in here. I do have some experience and can step in, if needed. It could be an opportunity to show I can still play, and we’ll see what happens.”
Grahame, 35, arrived in Calgary late Wednesday night and will back up Peter Budaj tonight against the Flames, who will go with rookie Henrik Karlsson in the net. Calgary is giving veteran workhorse Miikka Kiprusoff a rare night off.
Grahame went to Aurora’s Overland High School, played junior hockey with Sioux City of the USHL and then was at Lake Superior State for three seasons before signing with Boston. He has played 224 NHL games at Boston, Tampa Bay, and Carolina. He spent the 2008-09 season with Ormsk of the Kontinental League, then the first part of last season with Adirondack of the AHL before signing with the Avalanche organization in March to play for the Monsters. He started the season again with Lake Erie and had played four games with the Monsters before Anderson was hurt Tuesday and the call-up came.
Does Grahame still have aspirations to be a No. 1 NHL goalie again?
“I think you always have to, know what I mean?” he said. “I’ve been around a long time and been through a lot of different situations. The day you give up on yourself, there’s no reason playing. I definitely have the confidence to know that I can come in and do it. If that’s what they need, I’ll be ready. If they need a good cheerleader, I’ll do that as well.”
Grahame acknowledged that the previous two seasons were trying, especially the season he spent in Russia.
“It’s hard to describe to people who haven’t been over there,” he said. “It’s almost kind of like a movie, a bad movie. You can’t really believe the things that are going on, the levels that people will stoop to, to get their way.”
Grahame’s name is on the Stanley Cup because he was Nikolai Khabibulin’s backup for the 2004 Tampa Bay Lightning. His mother, Charlotte, is the long-time vice president of hockey administration for the Avalanche and has her name on the Cup, too, because of Colorado’s 2001 championship. His father, Ron, played at DU, was a long-time NHL and World Hockey Association goalie, and is the associate athletic director at DU.
“People use the cliché that sometimes things happen for a reason, and you never know,” John Grahame said. “If I finish up my career here, kind of like a storybook ending, having the family ties … but like I said, I’ll do whatever is asked of me.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
