Dater confirmed that Peter Budaj will make his first start tomorrow night against the Coyotes. He was supposed to make his first start two weeks ago but he was diagnosed with swine flu which caused him to miss all of last weeks games while Tyler Weiman filled in as Andy's back up.
Budaj has received some unfair treatment by fans (myself included) but not all of it is fully warranted. Last season, goaltending was a huge problem for the Avs and Peter was the number 1 in that department. Does that mean he is a number 1 in this League? Absolutely not. Is he a good goaltender? Sure, in a back up role. Thinking back to the days when Theodore came over from Montreal, Theo was hurt and Budaj was the one in charge of making sure the Avs didn't lose their playoff spot. He did really well in that role and sure enough the Avs made it into the playoffs. The next year, Theodore was about as terrible as he had ever been in his time in Denver which was costing us a shot at the playoffs. This was when the rest of the team decided to finally play good team hockey and it was lead by solid goaltending by Budaj. Even though they missed the playoffs, it was a damn good run by Budaj.
Bottom line is that Budaj is a perfectly capable back up goalie. Anderson definitely needs and deserves the rest and Budaj is a great option to have backing him up to give him that rest. I'm confident in Budaj's ability to win when he's asked to fill in. He's proved it many times before.
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