David Aebischer has had good and not-so-good seasons in the NHL but can find solace in the fact that he was indispensable a few times in his career, notably for
Team Switzerland at the 1998 World Juniors (bronze medal) and for the
Colorado Avalanche, when he replaced newly-retired superstar
Patrick Roy in 2003-04 en route to a 32-win, 2.09 GAA and .924% efficiency season. From a man who had gone 13-6-0 (1.88 GAA, .931 save %) in 2001-02, things were sure looking up...
But the lock-out cut his momentum short, and he would never have a GAA under 2.98 for the remainder of his NHL career, be it with the
Montréal Canadiens or
Phoenix Coyotes.
He then spent 4 full seasons in the Swiss league, with pretty much the same results while wearing the
HC Lugano uniform, before coming back to North America this season and leading the AHL
St. John's IceCaps (the
Winnipeg Jets' farm team) to a regular season championship.
Here he is with the Avalanche, first in the burgundy (away) uniform:
The card on the left is from
Topps'
2002-03 Topps Total set (card #201), packs of which I purchased at a dollar store a year after it was printed, just to see what the cards looked like; the card on the right is from
Upper Deck's
2005-06 SP Authentic set (card #27), a simple but pretty design.
There's also one of him in the white (home) uniform, from
Fleer's
2005-06 Fleer Ultra set (card #54):
And a card of him with my hometown Habs, with the team's post-lockout white (away) uniform:
It's from
Upper Deck's
2006-07 Victory set (card #102), one that always has a 90s-type of design, remains a complete set with lots of players and is relatively inexpensive to purchase by the pack.
cool
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