The reinvention of Jean-Sebastien Giguere begins tonight.
So writes a Canadian columnist about the NHL goaltender who won a Stanley Cup and a Conn Smythe Trophy in two
different seasons with the Anaheim Ducks. “Giggy” was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in January by the Ducks for Jason Blake and Vesa Toskala.
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The downtrodden Leafs
are counting on a resurrected Giguere to help them begin their own road to redemption, writes Steve Simmons in the Toronto Sun.
Giguere, 33, sounds up to the challenge.
“Re-establishing myself as a No. 1 guy is my main priority right
now,” he tells the journo. “. . . I'm not looking to be spectacular. I'm looking to be efficient. I'm looking to be consistent.”
Simmons writes:
And as a new season begins with pomp and hype and circumstance,
Giguere begins with something of a clean slate. It doesn't matter that
he lost his job to Jonas Hiller in Anaheim. It doesn't matter that his
Anaheim backup, Ilya Bryzgalov, is an all-star. Giguere went from Cup
champion to rather average in the span of a season. Now, we're not
certain what he is: This is his time, our time, of discovery.
Speaking of discovery, Giguere's former team will soon find out whether new players will gel with the old, and if a rebuilt defense will help return the Ducks to playoff glory. The franchise is coming off a disappointing season, but as James Crider writes the Bleacher Report, “they have a roster featuring young All-Star players like Ryan
Getzlaf, Corey Perry, Bobby Ryan and Jonas Hiller.
Crider's piece, “The Barbaro of Dark Horses,” does end on a high note. Let's hope he's right.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.