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Varlamov speaks to media, childhood dream was to play for Avalanche

Carolina Hurricanes v Washington Capitals

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: Goalie Semyon Varlamov #1 of the Washington Capitals against the Carolina Hurricanes at the Verizon Center on March 29, 2011 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

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One week after the July 1st trade that brought Semyon Varlamov to the Colorado Avalanche, he was formally introduced to the Denver media. In addition to performing the entire press conference (and subsequent interview session) in English, the 23-year-old Russian netminder surprised most people in attendance by telling everyone that his “childhood dream was to play for the Avalanche.” It shouldn’t be shocking considering the quality of the Avalanche teams during his formative years. None the less, it’s always fun to hear that a player dreamt of playing for a team that was the 2nd worst team in the league last season.

“It’s funny, but its true… my childhood dream was to play for the Avalanche.

And here’s the rationale:

“My favorite NHL player and NHL goalie played here. Patrick Roy. They’ve had lots of good players playing here, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Adam Foote. They had lots and lots of good players.”

Here’s the entire press conference and highlights from the media scrum afterwards (via the Avalanche’s official site):

It’s good to hear that he’s excited because he has plenty of work ahead of him. After making the playoffs in 2009-10, the Avalanche saw their season fall off of a cliff in 2010-11. An optimist will tell you that they didn’t even finish last in their own division. A realist will point out that only one team finished with a worse record—marking the second time in three seasons they had a top 3 pick in the draft. To make matters worse, they traded John-Michael Liles to the Toronto Maple Leafs for a draft pick and only added Jan Hejda and Chuck Kobasew to the team for next season. Unless Varlamov does his best Craig Anderson circa 2009 impression, it’s hard to see how the Avalanche are going to compete for a playoff spot.

At least Varlamov has a job in the NHL. Adrian Dater of the Denver Post asked Varlamov if there was a chance that he was going to go to the KHL:

“Uh, no. I don’t want to talk about that right now. It’s none of my business. I just want to talk about the Avalanche.”

Ignoring the ridiculous “it’s none of my business” part of the quote, he’s making a concerted effort to move onto his future with the Avs. Within the interview package, Varlamov said that he plans on staying in North America for another month, will head to Russia to visit family for a couple of weeks, and then return in mid-August to get ready for the season. For a man who was rumored to be heading to the KHL, he’ll be seeing much more of North America in the coming year than his native Russia.

Varlamov said that he has no idea who’s going to be the number one goalie, but it’s safe to assume that he’ll be given every opportunity to earn the starting job in training camp. JS Giguere and he both want the #1 spot, but the Avalanche didn’t give up a 1st and 2nd round pick for Varlamov just so he could sit on the bench.

The Avalanche think they have their franchise netminder for the future. Now it’s just time for him to prove it.