Julio Cortez / Associated Press)
NEWARK — Goaltender Jeremy Smith waited a long time to make his NHL debut. So long, perhaps in odes to "Bull Durham," he could be called "Crash" and deliver a soliloquy about, among other things, Lee Harvey Oswald acting alone and the appropriateness of hockey's trapezoid rule.
At age 27, with a dues-paying pro résumé that includes 43 games in the ECHL and 265 in the American Hockey League, Smith stepped into the Avalanche net Tuesday in the Prudential Center and, under siege, stopped 37-of-40 shots in Colorado's 3-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils.