'Andy' gets well-deserved day off

Photo of Peter Budaj by Getty Images

The Streak ends Wednesday night for Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson, who has started all 15 of the team's games.

It isn't that Anderson hasn't been playing well. He has, despite back-to-back losses to San Jose and Vancouver last weekend.

But he could use a rest and Peter Budaj needs to shake the cobwebs and rust off, and get into a game for the first time. Budaj has been given the nod to play against another surprisingly-successful team, the Phoenix Coyotes, at the Pepsi Center.

Budaj was scheduled to make his first start back on Oct. 23 when the Avalanche played Carolina at the Pepsi Center, but he came down with the flu, and it turned out to be the H1N1 virus (swine flu).

Budaj regained his health and joined the Avalanche for the games against the Sharks and Canucks but served as Anderson's backup.

"He deserves the opportunity,” coach Joe Sacco said today of Budaj. "Craig has played, as we all know, extremely well for us. I think it’s the right time right now to give Craig a rest and get Peter in there."

It'll be interesting to see how Avalanche fans react to Budaj, who is coming off a poor season in which he had the worst record of his NHL career when the team sank to the Western Conference basement.

Anderson was the NHL's Player of the Month for October when he tied a league record for the most wins by a goalie in that month (10), posted two shutouts and had a goals-against average of 2.04 and a .939 save percentage.

Anderson, who signed as a free agent in July, has become a popular figure in town, which puts more pressure on Budaj to excel. The boos are certain to come raining down from the stands if Budaj allows a soft goal or two.

This is an especially important season debut for Budaj, and a significant homestand for the Avalanche, which has gotten off to a 10-3-2 start despite playing 11 times on the road.

The Avalanche needs to prove that its start isn't a fluke. The Avalanche also needs to show fans disenchanted by last year's poor showing that it's worth purchasing tickets to watch the team play.

This homestand, which includes games against Chicago and Edmonton, could go a long way in doing that, and it all starts with Budaj in goal against the Coyotes.

Anderson could join US Olympic mix

The 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver are still four months away, giving a handful of hockey players who weren't invited to the U.S. orientation camp over the summer plenty of time to impress the powers that be enough to earn spots on the Olympic team.

One of them could be Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson, who is from Park Ridge, Ill., and makes his offseason home in Chicago.

Anderson isn't thinking a whole lot about the Olympic team at the moment, but he has to be opening some eyes in the American camp, including those of Olympic team general manager Brian Burke.

Burke, who also is GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, watched Anderson make 30 saves against his team earlier this month at the Air Canada Centre when the Avalanche skated to a 4-1 win.

Anderson has continued his extraordinary play, starting all 11 of the Avalanche's games -- he'll be in the crease again Tuesday night when Colorado visits Edmonton -- while posting an 8-1-2 record with a 2.14 goals-against average and .936 save percentage.

Anderson's numbers certainly stack up well with the three goalies who took part in the orientation camp: Buffalo's Ryan Miller (6-0-1, 1.69, .940); Los Angeles' Jonathan Quick (8-3-0, 2.91, .897) and Boston's Tim Thomas (4-3-0), 2.97, .902).

"I'm getting wins, and that's all that really matters," Anderson said. "The goal is to get 'W's' and try to find a way to win, and right now I'm seeing the puck well and the guys are getting goals for me. I'm just doing my job, and my job is to stop the puck."

St. Louis' Ty Conklin (2-1-0, 2.40, .918) is another possibility. He won 25 games with Detroit last season, and it was a surprise when he wasn't invited to the orientation camp.

This much is certain: it looks like the Americans, while decided underdogs in Vancouver, should be pretty solid in goal.

Canada deserves more NHL teams

Hard to argue with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who would like to see more NHL teams in the land of the maple leaf.

Canadian fans watched two franchises relocate to the U.S. -- Quebec to Denver and Winnipeg to Phoenix (now Glendale, Ariz.) -- in the mid 1990s, and BlackBerry mogul Jim Balsillie was thwarted in his attempts at bringing an American franchise to Hamilton, Ontario.

You probably could build a hockey rink in the middle of nowhere in Canada, and the team would sell out every game.

Of course, a fan base has never been the problem in Canada. The Quebec Nordiques and Winnipeg Jets did very well, thank you, drawing fans to their respective arenas.

But the problems were two-fold: both cities had antiquated buildings, and the teams didn't have enough corporate support.

That isn't necessarily the case today.

The old Winnipeg Arena, which featured perhaps the best press box view in the league and a large picture of Queen Elizabeth, has been replaced by the 15,000-plus seat MTS Centre, which opened five years ago. The American Hockey League's Manitoba Moose call the place home, and it'd be a fine place for an NHL team.

Over in Quebec City, Mayor Regis Labeaume has hired an engineering firm to conduct a feasibility study regarding a state-of-the-art arena to replace Le Colisee, once home to the Nordiques (and the best hot dogs in the NHL or any other league). The Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League now play in the arena.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, in a recent interview with the Toronto Sun, said "the door has always been open (to Canada)," adding that the league isn't planning at the moment to move any teams.

"But if we relocate or if we expand," Bettman continued, "we are going to consider all of the opportunities in Canada that should be considered, assuming people want to own franchises in any one of the possible markets."

Interestingly, Bettman has met with Mayor Labeaume, he said, "because he asked for a meeting and we were interested in what he had to say."

Said league deputy commissioner Bill Daly: "We are encouraged by the mayor's announcement on the new arena and we believe it will be a very good thing for the city of Quebec. While there are no guarantees that an NHL franchise can return, certainly a new arena will enhance those prospects significantly."

Plenty of U.S. franchises are experiencing problems on and off the ice, including Atlanta, Florida, Nashville, Phoenix and Tampa Bay.

A brand new arena is sitting in Kansas City and there supposedly are plans to build one in Las Vegas, but if any of these troubled teams have to relocate, Canadian cities ought to get first dibs.

Thrashers need to sign Kovalchuk

If the Atlanta Thrashers ever hope to make serious inroads in Georgia's sporting landscape -- is it even possible to compete with the Braves, Falcons, college football and NASCAR? -- they can't afford to lose their most exciting players.

Hockey is a tough sell in the South as it is, which is why the Thrashers had better find a way to keep star left wing Ilya Kovalchuk in town. Either that, or trade him for a bushel of talent.

Of course, you might ask why the talented Russian would want to keep playing in a city that doesn't really appreciate hockey and for a team that has missed the playoffs six times in his first seven NHL seasons.

At any rate, Thrashers general manager Don Waddell, who somehow manages to hang onto his job despite the club's ineptness just about every year, is trying to sign Kovalchuk to a new contract before he becomes an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.

That might not be so easy, considering Kovalchuk is being paid $7.5 million in the final year of his contract, already a ton of loot for a team like the Thrashers.

The 6-foot-2, 230-pounder is an offensive force, having scored between 41 and 52 goals in each of the past five seasons. He's off to a splendid start this year, too, with seven goals in the Thrashers' first five games.

Kovalchuk is just 27, so his best years could still be ahead of him, if that's even possible.

He reportedly likes being in Atlanta -- no pressure, I suppose -- but you'd think he'd enjoy playing in a more traditional hockey city even more, especially for a team with a legitimate chance at winning the Stanley Cup.

It's still early, so Waddell does have some time to get his man re-signed. If Waddell isn't able to accomplish the feat before the March 3 NHL trading deadline, he'll need to put the big guy on the market and get what he can in a trade rather than lose him to free agency and receive nothing in return.

Trust me, there would be plenty of suitors.

Wild looking pretty mild

They've got a new general manager, new coach, some new players, and they opened the season with a brutal road schedule.

The Colorado Avalanche? Well, yes, but first-year coach Joe Sacco and his troops have gotten off to a surprising 6-1-1 start and will take a four-game road winning streak into Wednesday's visit to the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn.

The Avalanche will take on the Minnesota Wild, which also has a new GM in Chuck Fletcher, new coach in Todd Richards, some new players in forwards Kyle Brodziak and Martin Havlat, and defensemen Shane Hnidy and Greg Zanon.

The Wild also has a 1-6-0 record and is coming off a disastrous five-game road trip in which it lost every game.

Maybe he wouldn't have re-signed with Wild at any price, but electric forward Marian Gaborik, who has had injury problems and was stifled under former coach Jacques Lemaire's defensive system, left as a free agent to sign a five-year, $37.5 million contract with the New York Rangers.

Gaborik is off to a torrid start with six goals and six assists in eight games. The Rangers have been equally strong with seven wins.

The Wild? Its major free agent acquisition was Havlat, who was given a six-year, $30 million deal after collecting 29 goals and 48 assists in 81 games with the Chicago Blackhawks. Havlat also had 15 points in 16 playoff games for the Hawks.

Havlat hasn't exactly gotten off to a scintillating start with the Wild. He has one goal, four assists and a minus-6 plus/minus rating. He's currently day to day with a groin strain.

Then again, usually-reliable defenseman Brent Burns is an awful -9, and fellow blue liner Nick Schultz is a minus-6.

The Wild still can't score much. Andrew Brunette has five of the team's 15 goals and no one else has more than two.

Goaltending has been a strength in the past, but not so much so far this season. Niklas Backstrom has a solid .913 save percentage to go along with a mediocre 2.82 goals-against average. Josh Harding has lost both of his decisions, and it's easy to see why. He owns a 5.50 GAA and his .738 save percentage is simply embarrassing.

Looking for a spark, Fletcher acquired gritty forward Chuck Kobasew from the Boston Bruins in exchange for minor leaguer Craig Weller, prospect Alexander Fallstrom and a second-round pick in the 2011 NHL entry draft.

Kobasew has scored between 20 and 22 goals in three of the past four seasons. He had 21 in 68 games for the Bruins a year ago. He has no goals and one assist in seven games this year and will have to start playing a lot better to make any sort of impact on this struggling squad.

Young Avs are NHL's biggest surprise

So what's the deal with this young bunch of Colorado Avalanche?

Who would have thought these guys would be 5-1-1 through the season's first seven games, with a 3-1-1 record in the first five games of what could have been a disastrous seven-game road trip?

Not me, and probably not anybody else, either.

The Avalanche was coming off a last-place finish in the Western Conference; team president Pierre Lacroix fired just about everybody in the front office and coaching staff; longtime captain Joe Sakic retired; and co-scoring leader Ryan Smyth was dispatched to Los Angeles.

So much for expectations.

I know it's ridiculously early, but free-agent pickup Craig Anderson has been splendid in the crease; the Avalanche has a potent top line in Wojtek Wolski, Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk; 14 different players already have scored goals; 18-year-old rookies -- yes, there are two -- Matt Duchene and Ryan "Radar" O'Reilly sure look like they belong; defenseman Kyle Quincey, acquired in the Smyth trade, has been a force at both ends of the ice; and the special teams have been, well, special.

The Avalanche boasts the fifth-youngest roster in the league with an average age of 27.043 years. Ten regulars, four of whom are rookies, are between the ages of 18 and 25.

No problem, apparently.

"We're a young team, but we bring a lot of energy," rookie center T.J. Galiardi, 21, said. "We're just trying to do the right things."

This team hasn't done much wrong lately, though Saturday's visit to Joe Louis Arena to face the Detroit Red Wings will be a stern test.

"You saw what happened last year and we're a lot younger team and there probably aren't high expectations," said Paul Stastny, who's in his fourth NHL season but is just 22. "We're trying to prove ourselves after last year, and we're enjoying the challenge."

The NHL hands out more hardware than any professional league on the planet, but it's too bad it doesn't present one for the best coaching job in the first month of the season.

If there was, it would go to first-year Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco.

Hands down.

Laraque in hot water over ad

Georges Laraque usually gets into trouble on the ice as an enforcer with the Montreal Canadiens. The 6-f0ot-3, 253-pound right wing began his 12th NHL season this year with 52 goals and 1,098 penalty minutes in 667 career games.

Now, the 33-year-old is in hot water with the league and women's groups for appearing in a commercial for an alcohol drink that shows him playing street hockey with several scantily-clad women.

The commercial has no dialogue and can be viewed at 33mag.com.

According to Article 25.1 of the league's collective bargaining agreement: "No player shall be involved in any endorsement or sponsorship of alcoholic beverages (excluding malt-based beverages such as beer) and/or tobacco products."

Laraque told Montreal reporters that he regrets appearing in the commercial, adding that he donated the proceeds to an animal-rights group and intends to work for women's causes in the future.

Laraque said he wasn't aware of the script when he arrived for the shoot and that he agreed to appear because it offered a nice payday for charity.

"This is one more example of sexist advertising," Alexa Conradi, of
the Federation des femmes du Quebec, told The Canadian Press. "Why is it that when we're trying to market a campaign toward men aged 20 to 35, we always use this kind of ad? What does that say about our concept of masculinity?"