David Aebischer Jersey Card

Seeing as how Peter Budaj revived his career after injuries to Jonathan Quick and Jeff Zatkoff, perhaps another former Colorado Avalanche and Montréal Canadiens goalie could pull it off next year. No, not José Theodore, I meant David Aebischer.

Then again, the Swiss goalie hasn't played since an awful stint in the second-tier Swiss League in 2014-15, where he posted a 4.72 GAA in 5 games after a few dismal seasons in the upper-echelon of hockey in Switzerland:

Courtesy of HockeyDB.com

Those are pretty bad numbers.

Nevertheless, he looks pretty cool on this card, #FF-DA from Upper Deck's 2005-06 Ice set and Frozen Fabrics sub-set, wearing the Avs' old burgundy uniform:

It's a plastic card that has some see-through portions and features a matching burgundy game-worn jersey swatch.

David Aebischer: 5 Autographed Cards (Part 1)

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.

(continued in the next post)

David Aebischer: 5 Autographed Cards (Part 2)

(continued from the previous post)

I had sent Aebischer these 4 cards on April 11th, 2012, with a fan letter telling him how we might have needed his services this season, and he got them all back on May 31st (2012), signed in black sharpie - the white Avs one didn't ''stick'' so well to the card - and he included a fifth card:

It's from the 2011-12 IceCaps Team Set (#1), manufactured by Choice Sportscards, which is fast becoming the leader in AHL team sets.

It is rumoured Aebischer will move back to Switzerland next season, so I was quite happy to get this amazing return.