World's Okayest Blog - Shutouts and Nicknames

It's a good milestone. The first shutout. It's nice to get the first one out of the way.
I think every game you're looking for that performance and once you get it you feel a little more comfortable. It was big for me with the team as well, them seeing that I could have some time off and then come out and play. That was probably the best team game we've had all year long, so my job wasn't too hard, but I was there when I needed to be even with how minimal it was.
I know my role. Jones is playing great and there's not a whole lot of separation in our division, so he's going to play a bunch and my job is to come in when he needs a rest and give the team a chance to win when I get to play. If I accept that and prepare for that, it's going to give me the best chance to be able to do that. It really helps having a coach like Johan Hedberg here. He makes sure that I have good habits during practice. Before and after practice he helps me work on small details and game-like stuff that you don't normally see in practice. I think that really helps keep me prepared for the chances that I do get even how few and far between they are.

Speaking of time off, I stayed here for Christmas. My wife, my brother and my brother's wife came down for the holidays. We went up to see some of the big redwoods and then we went down to Santa Cruz to show them all around the Bay Area a little bit. We had a couple of nice family meals which I don't get to enjoy too often. My brother and his wife left before New Year's. My wife's still here through January 18th, so I still get to spend some time with her before she goes back to school. On New Year's the team flew home from our game in LA, so it was pretty late already. A few of us went up to Brauner's place and celebrated a little bit there.

I have quite a few nicknames that bounce around. Deller. Dells. World's Okayest Goalie. A lot of the guys call me different names. Jumbo calls me something different every time he sees me I think. He just keeps making up more and more. He had me at Dellicious to start. Then it was just 'Licious. And then Lish. And then Bubbalicious. Then Bubba. And Bubbalou. He was all over the place.
That's all I got for my first blog. I'll check in soon to bring you more from the life of a goalie in the NHL.