John Grahame Returns to the NHL... Kind of

During Thursday night's 6-5 Colorado Avalanche win over the Calgary Flames, a few things probably stood out above the rest:

1) Peter "Roll of the Die" Budaj was starting for the Avalanche instead of the injured Craig Anderson and he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can still win at the NHL level... only in the rare occurence that Colorado scores more goals than he lets in.

2) Henrik Karlsson was making his second start in a week for Calgary, clearly serving as indication that the Flames intend-ED to reduce Miikka Kiprusoff's workload this year from the over 74 he's averaged in the last five seasons.

3) The Avalanche's Chris Stewart notched a hat-trick as he continues to prove the naysayers (yours included) wrong, becoming at least temporarily the second-leading scorer in the NHL. I think it's gotten to the point where it's no longer fair to refer to him as "The Brother of Anthony Stewart".

4) Flames head coach Brent Sutter called out the entire team in the media following the loss, making a point of specifically excluding Olli Jokinen from his tirade, which is kind of like a parent using the troublemaker of his three kids as an example to get the other two to quit throwing tantrums in a grocery store: "Quiet down guys! You're being worse than Jimmy! Is that what you want? Is it?"

Beyond all that, the game marked the return of goaltender John Grahame, who last saw game action in the NHL with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2007-2008. Of course, he didn't play yesterday and had also been recalled by Colorado from the AHL last April after signing a mid-season contract with his hometown team in March, but it was still nice to see a familiar face, even his, even if the chances of living through another John Tortorella candid moment in regard to Grahame's lack of top-level goaltending skills are slim to none. It did make number three on TSN's top 10 Tortorella moments if you're interested.

"I wonder if I should send Torts a Christmas card this year."

If you're wondering, Grahame spent 2008-2009 playing for Avangard Omsk in the KHL and most recently was playing for the Lake Erie Monsters in the AHL. While he will never get another chance to start in the NHL, it is nice that something good is coming out of this tragedy, in that it is just as unlikely that Budaj will play all of the Avalanche's game between now and the point that Anderson is healthy again. As such, look for Grahame to make his first NHL start in three years sometime soon. Because at least with Grahame you know what you're going to get, apparently one goal allowed for every four shots on goal... which still would have been good enough for the Avalanche to win last night, by the way.