Black and White (and more) on Budaj, who comes from a family of doctors

One key to earning Darryl Sutter’s trust is to maximize your skill set. Peter Budaj, despite hiccups this season, has done exactly that in helping to keep the Kings in the middle of the playoff race. “He’s proven that he’s pretty calm in the net, but has probably had to learn the importance of having detail game-in and game-out in order to stay at this level and be a number one guy,” Goaltending Coach Bill Ranford said in the latest installment of Black and White. “But the bottom line is that he’s found ways to win, he’s gotten better and better each game and realized the work that’s needed to be put in for him to be successful.”

I had a conversation with Budaj shortly before the announcement of All-Star Game participants. When Budaj wasn’t named, I was sitting on a bunch of interesting quotes but not quite sure what I wanted to do with them. Thank you, LA Kings Production! Tying this into the Black and White video, here is another glimpse into the circumstances that led Budaj to sign a PTO with Los Angeles in the 2015 off-season.

There’s also some interesting background here on the goaltender who grew up in Slovakia as the son of an anesthesiologist and a pediatrician. His father doesn’t work as a practicing anesthesiologist anymore; he’s now a medical consultant who works at a hospital. While working in medicine has roots in his family’s lineage, he wanted to focus more on hockey from an early age.

“I think my grandfather was a doctor, and my mom’s sisters were both doctors too,” Budaj said. “I think it ran in the family and I think my grandfather wanted us to go that way, but obviously we went the way that our parents said that we should do what we enjoy and what we have a passion for, and once you have a passion for it you’ve got to try 100%, so our parents gave us a free hand with that.”

Budaj, on whether he ever went to work with his parents as a kid:
Oh yeah, I used to come to my dad’s work and mom’s work just after school to go see them and say hi. When my dad had night shifts I got off work to say hi or bring him something, I was always glad to see him. When I got older I got more interested about the human body and everything else, so I think there is something there, but I don’t think I would be able to do surgeries, I think it’s too much pressure. I think it’s pretty amazing what the doctors do and how they can handle the pressure and everything else what’s going on there, so they’re very special people and I think maybe I would be good for it but I never really had the passion for it.

Budaj, on whether this season has rekindled the joy of playing professional sports:
I think it’s just surreal. I think it’s just a huge blessing for me and I’m always so thankful for this moment and this opportunity. I think if somebody talked to me two years ago and told me this was going to happen two years from now I would be like, ‘come on.’ I wouldn’t believe them. I think it’s a story for the books and I’m just saying that it’s very easy to like say ‘oh it’s your work. It’s your hard work.’ Yeah, I’m trying to work hard as much as possible, but it’s a huge blessing and a lot of things have to fall in to place for you to be here. I’m a Christian and I believe that this is God’s path for me and I’m very thankful and I always want to be humble and try not to get too much caught up with everything that’s going on right now because it’s just so amazing and so easy to forget where you were and everything else. I just want to keep working hard, be thankful and enjoy this moment and try to help the team to win a game and that’s what you try to do, that’s my approach and that’s what I want to do.

Budaj, on whether he learned to stay in the present after a tough season in St. John’s:
Yeah definitely, I think it was big. You always say that you try to focus on the stuff that you can control but then sometimes you can just see real lives, not even in hockey life or athletes’ lives, just regular life, you know, day-to-day things. You try to think and worry about stuff you have absolutely zero control over, and that’s going to creep up to you and then literally the stuff that you can control just slips away from you. I think in St. John’s, that’s what happened and it was a combination of things, I was just unhappy. I’m just happy right now that I’m healthy and I’m able to work hard and the team is playing really well in front of me. We have a very good team here with us and it’s just a good opportunity and I’m excited and I’m very thankful for this moment.

Budaj, on chatting with Zdeno Chara and Marian Gaborik after the game in Boston:
It’s always great to see your friends and people that you know and countrymen, we don’t have many in the league so it’s nice to see that. But you know there’s a lot of great things, I chatted with my friends, I chatted with Carey Price after the game in Montreal. Carey’s a great guy, he said some very nice words and I really appreciate that. He doesn’t have to do it and he’s a very class act and a class human being and I’m very thankful for that. It makes you feel good, and I think just to be back, just to be part of this whole amazing gift. I think as a hockey player playing in the NHL you kind of forget how great you have it when you play in it for a few years so you just want to enjoy this moment because it’s really something that millions of people dream of and you’re able to do it. You’re healthy and you’re here and it’s just humbling and you’ve got to be thankful for it every day and try not to take it for granted and try to work hard as much as you can.

More on goaltending, from ESPN Insider ($): Why goalies are struggling this season

Tonight's starter: Boods

A photo posted by Jon Rosen (@lakinsider) on Jan 24, 2017 at 3:37pm PST