Although Peter Budaj was pretty rusty through the first day of Avalanche Training Camp this morning, he still looked quite sleek in his new Bauer X:60 setup. Good job by BudajFan31 from www.GoaliePost.com for noticing that Budaj’s blocker is actually an XR skinned with X:60 graphics.
It was also the first time we noticed Jocelyn Thibault on the ice working with the Avs goalies. Peter Delmas, Tyler Weiman and Billy Sauer spent the majority of the day with Thibault, which included some informal introductions, plenty of smiles and the discussion of a few simple drills. This is just one of them:
I was beyond impressed with Thibault’s work with the goalies on the ice. He handled introductions promptly, and as you can see, got right down to business by warming up the goalies for the scrimmage. Budaj’s rust was pretty visible from the get-go. I noticed that he played at least a half-step deeper in his crease than usual and he seemed tense and tight in the shoulders. Numerous times in the first hour of drills he was beaten under the elbows or top-shelf. I also caught him doing a lot of this throughout the drills:
There was some visible negative feedback, as he would turn his head and shoulders in frustration while getting back into his butterfly stance after allowing a goal. I’m not sure how he performed during the scrimmage, but many fans I spoke to afterwards agreed that his timing was off. At least with all the time I spent watching Budaj today, I did snag a photo of his mask:
I have no idea who that is on the edge of his mask (the right side), but we can tell you that Ned Flanders is proudly displayed on the backplate once again, but this time in a larger size than ever before. There’s also a motorcycle being blanketed by the checkered flag right above the unknown character.
Stay tuned for tomorrow morning’s SCHOOL OF BLOCK, which will bring you an inside look at some other dynamics Thibault brought to the Avs goaltending regime and how it should really benefit the organization’s depth at that position.
