Friday, July 20, 2007

Aebischer to the Desert

Swiss keeper, David Aebischer, has signed a 1-year deal with the Phoenix Coyotes for a mere $600,000. Aebischer, who has spent time in Colorado and Montreal, will look to become the Coyotes number one guy in 2007/08.

In Montreal, he spent a couple seasons fighting a losing battle to both Cristobel Huet and Jaroslav Halak after spending some time as the Avalanche's number one guy after Patrik Roy left. Aebischer went on to lose his job to Jose Theodore and Peter Budaj and really has started to make a career as being the odd guy out.

In Phoenix, he will go into camp as the favourite to take the number one job ahead of Mikael Tellqvist and David Leneveu, but even Leneveu has a good line on the job heading in as well. Tellqvist is more of a career back-up, but if the starting job wasn't a good race, then the back-up one will be.

Aebischer finished last season with 13 wins and ranked himself 325th on the list (37th among goaltenders). That was a long way down from the season previous where he finished 80th, but he did take most of the starts in Montreal that year. I think a good comparison of points for this coming season would be to look at what Curtis Joseph did (18 wins & 4 shutouts, 30th among goaltenders) and maybe shave a bit off. Phoenix isn't going to have a great season... they are far from that at the moment. Aebischer would have to stand on his head to make the Coyotes a better team.

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