Mile High Sticking
Fansided

Colorado Avalanche Preseason Schedule Released: What Can We Expect?

By Janik Beichler

facebooktwitterreddit

After a long time with seemingly no news on the team, the Colorado Avalanche preseason schedule has finally been released. Those of you that were hoping to see some versatility and watch the Avalanche face off with many different teams will be disappointed. However, there likely will be versatility — just in a different way.

Colorado Avalanche preseason schedule

[table id=21 /]

More from Mile High Sticking

This year’s preseason will only feature six games for the Avalanche, as opposed to eight games last year. Colorado will play three straight home games against the Ducks, Flames and Kings, before hitting the road and “changing it up” to play the Flames, Ducks and Kings. The last game of the preseason is the 17th edition of the annual Frozen Fury that will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada.

As we can see, the Colorado Avalanche preseason will feature contests with only three different teams. Last season, the Avalanche played two games each against only four teams as well. However, those games can be expected to all be completely different.

The NHL preseason is there to try out new line combinations, give prospects a chance to see some NHL ice time and see who can make the regular season roster. Therefore, each game generally features a unique roster combination. That can be the anything between full NHL rosters filled up with some top-prospects and full-on prospect or AHL rosters filled up with some NHL depth players.

Players to watch

  1. D Chris Bigras
  2. G Reto Berra / G Calvin Pickard
  3. C Joey Hishon
  4. D Duncan Siemens
  5. D Mason Geertsen
  6. RW Andreas Martinsen
  7. C Conner Bleackley

The players in the above list are mostly players that are on the verge of making the NHL roster and will have to convince coach Patrick Roy in training camp and the preseason. Furthermore, it features players coming out of junior or from Europe, where it will be interesting to see how close they are to the NHL.

It will be interesting to see what will happen with the goalie-duo Berra/Pickard, as both of them will want the NHL backup spot, but only one can have it. As of now, Berra is probably a tad ahead, simply because Pickard has a two-way contract while Berra does not.

More from Avalanche News

Another position that will be interesting to follow is the defense. With Chris Bigras, Duncan Siemens and Mason Geertsen, we have three D-men that could be a huge upgrade to the Avalanche’s current defense, once they get used to the pro-game or, in Simens’ case, take their development to the next step.

As to the forwards, only one of them has a real shot at making the roster and that is Joey Hishon. However, he will have to prove that he is a better option than Marc-André Cliche and co. Conner Bleackley and Andreas Martinsen likely won’t be seen in the NHL anytime soon, but it will be interesting to follow how close they are to the NHL.

The Colorado Avalanche preseason schedule is announced and we can expect to see six completely different games. One thing that always has to be kept in mind is that the preseason is more about figuring out the roster than actually showing where a team is at. Losing five out of six games would not mean that the team will also end up in the bottom half of the standings.

Next: One Avs Trade Bait For Each Position

More from Mile High Sticking

Home/Avalanche News