The Colorado Avalanche opening night roster will feature some prospects as the team maintains its dedication to the youth movement.
The Colorado Avalanche are going to be a young team this year. They don’t have a choice — only Carl Soderberg (31) and Blake Comeau (31) are over the age of 30. And obviously none of the prospects are going to be anywhere near 30 years old.
Well, on Friday the Avalanche held their only home ice rookie camp day. There were 13 players who already have contracts with Colorado. There were also several tryout players, but none of them really stood out to me.
In any case, the Avs have some roster spots up for grabs, especially in the defensive corps. There they have only three legit NHLers signed to contracts — Erik Johnson, Tyson Barrie and Mark Barberio. Whether they’ll get Nikita Zadorov signed is up in the air, but that still leaves at least three positions open.
The forward corps is a little tighter. I’d say there are 9 forwards (if Matt Duchene shows) who are a lock for opening night:
- Nathan MacKinnon
- Matt Duchene
- Gabriel Landeskog
- Carl Soderberg
- Colin Wilson
- Sven Andrighetto
- Matthew Nieto
- Mikko Rantanen
- Nail Yakupov
Blake Comeau and Joe Colborne could be healthy scratches. That means at best the Avs have three spots open, but maybe only one.
Well, the prospects are definitely going to be raring to fill those spots. Let’s look at five players who legitimately might fill out the Colorado Avalanche roster on opening night.