After being pulled in our last game against Calgary it was no suprise that Budaj did not start last night.  Although Theodore was in the net, I forced myself to listen to the game.  He does do ok against the Flames afterall.  While he had many so called "great" saves, the 3 that "slipped" by him were exactly like I predicted they would be, trickling in behind him.  This of course being the biggest problem I had with him last year.  While Theodore is usually standing completely out of the box looking around for the puck, it's sliding in right behind him. 

For all the fans that don't share my loathing of him, he did have 39 saves, however this is in his normal range.  Mind boggling that he can be such an "exceptional" goaltender and still go 13-15-1 for 33 games last year.  Those numbers don't add up to 33 of course because he was pulled 4 times during the course of those 33 games.  Now if that doesn't warrant 6 million dollars a year.. I dont' know what does.

On a side note:  our ability on the ice was pretty good for the 1st period but kind of seemed to wilt away in the second.  Nice to see Svatos get the tying goal to take us into overtime.  Smyth took no time winning the game in OT.  Hopefully this is the start of a great year for him.  In my opinion, he's finally starting to show why he has the contract terms he does, too bad Theodore can't follow suit.