Reto Berra Can Contribute to the Colorado Avalanche
For about two games at the beginning of the season, especially when one was the Colorado Avalanche’s first win, Avs fans felt goalie Reto Berra could contribute to the team. Berra then had a couple bad starts, and his brief moment of good graces was over.
Well, Reto Berra is back as Semyon Varlamov‘s backup after a five-game conditioning stint with the club’s AHL-affiliate, the Lake Erie Monsters. In that time, Berra recorded three regulation wins, an overtime loss and a regulation loss. To put it in perspective, in the last five games Varlamov recorded two regulation wins, two overtime losses and a regulation loss.
Oh, Berra also recorded a goal.
Reto Berra looked good with the Monsters, more relaxed than he has with the Avalanche. Pundits will claim that’s because the AHL is his correct level of play. Could be. Could be he feels snake-bitten with the Avalanche.
Whatever the backstory, Berra is back, and he feels good.
For one, he’s feeling more confident. Lack of confidence has been a big detriment to the his play this year — well, the whole team has lacked confidence at times — so Berra’s return to confidence is a boon. When asked if his confidence had returned, Berra told Denver Post writer Terry Frei:
"“Oh, yeah, of course. If not, I probably would not be here and be back now. I feel really good, I’m confident, I’m ready to go. My confidence is really good. I had really good games [with Lake Erie].”"
Berra contributes his renewed confidence to all the playing time he had:
"“I played three games in three nights the first weekend and this week we played two games at home. I saw a lot of action, so it was great.”"
Of course, while with the Lake Erie Monsters, Berra scored a goal and participated in his now-legendary celebration. Berra states he’d practiced the move while still in Switzerland, but not in the U.S. He remarked that a particular challenge is all the traffic between the goalie and the net. However, the goal was understandably special, and he felt the celebration was warranted:
"“I was so emotional in that moment,. I don’t even know what I did. I just saw the whole bench standing up and leaning over, like they wanted to get high fives, so I said OK and went over. It’s a team sport. I went and high-fived my teammates. It’s normal after a goal. Maybe it was not the best thing, I don’t know. Some players from Chicago were angry but after a second, it was all good.”"
With all that in the past, though, Berra is ready to get back on track with the Avalanche. He points out the obvious, that the Avs need some points. Some wins, not just ties. (He only said the wins part, but it’s true about the ties.) Berra sees the battle going all the way to the end of the season.
Berra is taking a holistic approach to the task:
“We need to take care of ourselves mentally and also physically, like with our bodies. And rest enough. when we’re on the ice, we have to give everything we have.”
It all seems so simple, especially when Berra outlines the plan:
“We have to win the one-on-one battles, and put pucks on the net and drive to the net hard. And stay out of the box. Just little details — we have to do better than them.”
Ah, yes, it’s as if Berra has heard the English idiom that the devil is in the details.
There is no timetable for when Berra might get a start in net. However, after all the trouble to send Berra down for conditioning, head coach Patrick Roy might just have in mind to start Berra in the next back-to-back series, when the Avalanche visit first the Minnesota Wild and then the Winnipeg Jets in the same weekend.