Colorado Avalanche: The Waiver Wire can Influence the Roster

The Colorado Avalanche intend to continue to use the waiver wire to their advantage.

The following post is a guest piece by writer Mark T.

The waiver wire plays a particularly important role for the Colorado Avalanche this preseason.

Joe Sakic has already publicly stated that his team is going to be taking advantage of its position in the waiver claims system. Until November 1, Colorado gets first priority on any waived player because they were so spectacularly awful last season. This is the only true guaranteed advantage to finishing last in the league, and I’m glad Sakic is planning to take advantage of it.

The waiver wire officially becomes active 12 days before the offical start of the NHL season — that’s today. So from this point on many players sent to the AHL will have to pass the inspection of Sakic and Co. to determine if they might not look better in an Avalanche sweater.

I’ve taken a look at some of the options around the league, and to be honest nothing jumps out at me as a great fit. Everyone talks about Vegas and their abundance of defensemen, but realistically, they could just waive three of Brad Hunt (29 year old AHL journeyman), Clayton Stoner (32 year old who Anaheim basically paid Vegas to choose), Derek Engelland (age 35) or Luca Sbisa (age 27 bottom pair defenseman for Vancouver last season).

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Of those four, I only see Sbisa and maybe Hunt as realistic options, and that would be as someone to sit in the press box and serve as an insurance policy if the young guys struggle.

Now, if Vegas waives one of Nate Schmidt, Brayden McNabb, Jon Merrill, Colin Miller, or Griffin Reinhart, the Avs should be all over it. But I don’t think it’s likely any of them will be waived.

And the rest of the league doesn’t look much more promising at this point from what I can tell. However, that doesn’t mean a decent young player won’t become available. All it takes is a young, waiver-exempt player making the team and forcing that team to waive another promising young player.

The good news for the Colorado Avalanche is they can afford to be patient. There is a good chance a number of waiver exempt players will make the team (especially defensemen), which means they will be able to find spots for anyone they pick up on the waiver wire. They also have only 41 out of 50 contracts signed, so they have plenty of room to add guys.

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In any case, until November 1, it’s going to be interesting to watch the waiver wire and imagine who the Colorado Avalanche might be able to add. It’s not likely they’ll get any star players from this process, but this organization desperately needs quality depth, and this is a great way to get it.