Former Sabres goaltender Jocelyn Thibault is back in the NHL -- as a goaltending consultant.
Thibault, who never found his game in Buffalo in 2007-08 but finished his career with a shutout in Boston in the season finale, has been hired by the Colorado Avalanche. Thibault played 10 games for the Avs in 1995-96 before being shipped to Montreal as part of the Patrick Roy deal.
"He's had a long and pretty good career, and we feel he is going to be a good asset, a good complement, to the goaltenders," Avalanche Vice President Jean Martineau told the Denver Post.
In other NHL news:
*Defenseman Jason Smith, who has played 1,008 NHL games, has retired. Smith spent last season with the Ottawa Senators.
*Chris Chelios, 47, tells the Detroit News is still holding out hope that he'll be back for another season.
*TSN.ca and Sportsnet.ca will be blogging live this afternoon from Phoenix, where Judge Redfield T. Baum is expected to decide whether Jim Balsillie can participate in next week's auction for the Coyotes. Toronto Star reporter Kevin McGran is also in Phoenix, and he is looking forward to seeing Balsillie, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes and NHL Deputy Commish Bill Daly in the same room.
"As if this unlikely hockey city – where temperatures are expected to reach 41 C today – isn't sweltering enough, the action in the courtroom of Judge Redfield T. Baum is going to heat things up even more," McGran writes.
The Arizona Republic, meanwhile, profiles a few folks who desperately want the Coyotes to stay in Phoenix and not move to Hamilton, like Balsillie hopes.
---John Vogl
