Colorado Avalanche: Examining the Alex Kerfoot Signing

The Colorado Avalanche signed forward Alex Kerfoot, a college unrestricted free agent out of Harvard. It appears to be a depth signing.

The Colorado Avalanche may no longer have an Adam Foote or even a yeti foot on their jerseys, but there’s a new Kerfoot in town — Alex Kerfoot. The team signed the Harvard graduate today, and, no, it’s not for analytics.

Alex Kerfoot is a 5-foot-10, ~175-pound  center/right wing who just completed his fourth year of NCAA hockey with Harvard. The 23-year-old was a fifth-round pick by the New Jersey Devils in 2012, but he became an unrestricted free agent on August 16.

I’d never heard of the young man — though I liked his name on sight for obvious wordplay reasons — so I looked him up. Unfortunately, the scouting reports were underwhelming. Here’s what Kevin Kurz of NBC Sports California had to say about Kerfoot:

“He looks to me a lot more like an AHL guy for a few years at least; teams should look to sign him because he helps the organization, but he’s not making an NHL impact for a while, if ever. Only one NCAA season with a double-digit goal total, he’s also 23.”

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Well, that’s not promising at all.

Other sites were a little more positive. Dobber Prospects remarked that he was likely to need at least half a season in the AHL and that his emergence in the NHL depended on players such as Joe Colbourne and Matthew Nieto bottoming out.

Well, that’s a little better, but not great.

Hockey’s Future mentioned both positives and negatives. On the positive side:

“Kerfoot is blessed with a tremendous amount of natural offensive skill. His best attributes though are his on-ice vision and hockey sense. His elite-level puck skills are evident in the fact that he is both a good passer and finisher.”

However, the site does go on that Kerfoot needs to continue working on his skating — which doesn’t sound up the fleet-footed Colorado Avalanche’s alley at all.

I asked Avs insider Rick Sakowski via Twitter what he though of the singing, and he said this about Kerfoot:

So, this all sounds to me like another depth signing. The Colorado Avalanche are woefully lacking in depth, so they need to fill the roster.

Next: All About Dom Toninato

I was a little worried earlier in the season that GM Joe Sakic and the rest of the Avalanche front offices weren’t doing enough to create two full rosters for the Avs and the San Antonio Rampage. It does appear that Joe Sakic is doing a little garage sale shopping.

You can find gems at garage sales, but you’ve got to dig. I don’t know that I feel completely confident with what the Colorado Avalanche are doing right now, but there does appear to be some attempt at building the franchise.