Final Grade: D+
Midseason Grade: C-
Season Stats: 33 GP, 1,748 Min, 3.26 GAA, 13 W, 15 L, 1 T, 0 SO .891 Sv%
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Splits:
1st Half: 22 GP, 1237 Min, 3.10 GAA, .899 Sv%
2nd Half: 11 GP, 510 Min, 3.64 GAA, .870 Sv%
Career: Not a career year for Jose.
Report: Closing these out with this week with three Quebecois who have seen better days in the NHL...For Theodore, it was not quite the rebound season he was hoping for...Ditto for Avalanche fans...Struggled out of the gate, lost his job in December, and then played worse in the 2nd half...Some people put some of the blame on coach Quenneville, which certainly has some merit...Only had one stretch of more than 3 consecutive starts all year...That stretch was a typical Theodore up and down stretch: 2 goals, 5 goals (pulled), 1 goal, 2 goals, 4 goals...Hot and cold like that all year – the antithesis of Budaj...There's talk that the team played better in front of Budaj...Statistically true, but only by a slim margin...Goal support is 3.26 for Budaj, 3.12 for Theo...Shots against average is 28.1 for Budaj, 29.8 for Theodore...In other words, that's not the reason...Honestly, it seemed to me like he just has a hard time focusing for a full 60...Gave up way too many goals from beyond the faceoff circles...Didn't fight hard enough on pucks moving through a screen...His GAA while shorthanded was 8.05 (Budaj's was 6.75)...Just a meh performance all-around.
Fast Fact: Theodore has not had a shutout since the lockout (75 games)
2007-2007 Salary: $5,500,000
2007-2008 Status: signed ($6,000,000)
Outlook: There's a lot of debate out there on what the team should do with Theodore. Some say we should buy him out and sign a cheap veteran backup. It wouldn't amount to much in the way of cap savings, but it would rid the club of the baseball-cap wearing albatross and might even improve our goaltending. Unfortunately, there aren't a ton of attractive options – cheap or otherwise – on the free agent market this summer. Michael Wall was added at the deadline, but it's too early to expect him to be backup in the NHL (he did play 4 games with Anaheim this year). My money is on Theodore spending one more year on the bench in Denver.