Montreal Canadiens' Jose Theodore (Part 2)

Just to finish up my previous post, I think he's a decent goaltender, but he hasn't shown to me that he's a great goaltender yet, even though he's paid like it.

Theodore will get $4.5 million this season, $5.5 million in 2006-07 and $6 million in 2007-08. He'll be among the top six in pay among goaltenders.

Theo showing his form. What style is this? Break dancing on ice?

He's overrated at this point in his career, and he's lucky he got that nice contract from Bob Gainey. If I remember correctly from reading the Gazette, Gainey was quoted as saying he would like to have some consistency from Theodore. What?! Wow, something like $16 million over three years for some inconsistent play, sounds like a great deal for Theo...

The fact is, he might play like a Top 3 goalie for a few weeks, but most of the time he plays like a #15 goalie. His contract is pretty consistent, why not save a couple of million dollars and get another defencemen? Another top six defencemen would definitely help Theo more than another million to his contract. One thing's for sure, Theo has a great agent.

Let's look at the game a couple of days ago, from Canadian Press:

Montreal came out flying, outshooting Pittsburgh 17-6 in the first but were done in by soft goaltending as Theodore let in the first two shots he faced.

Remember, this is one of the worst teams in the league (Pittsburgh Penguins) we're talking about...and without Mario Lemieux. The Pens scored 6 times with guys like Endicott and Ferland both scoring their first goals of the season (and don't tell me those two are the next Spezza & Heatley combo).

Yes, too many soft goals, bad defence, or goals that weren't his fault...The bottom line it that the defence starts with your goalie, and if the defence is bad, you have to take a look at your goalie. No one wants to say it, but there's no way around it, Theo is just not that good.