Colorado Avalanche 2017-18 Season Preview
Roster
Speaking of rosters, the Colorado Avalanche will dress only eight of the same players from last year’s opening night:
- Semyon Varlamov
- Nikita Zadorov
- Erik Johnson
- Tyson Barrie
- Gabriel Landeskog
- Nathan MacKinnon
- Blake Comeau
- Matt Duchene
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Carl Soderberg is expected to be a healthy scratch, and Joe Colborne was placed on waivers today.
In other words, the Colorado Avalanche have a lot of new faces this year. Some of them have spent time with the team already, including last year’s acquisitions of Matthew Nieto, Sven Andrighetto and Mark Barberio.
Some of them are NHLers who are brand new to the team, including Colin Wilson, Nail Yakupov, Jonathan Bernier and yesterday’s surprise waiver pick up Patrik Nemeth.
The roster also includes some very green talent (and I don’t mean they recycle) in prospects J.T. Compher, Tyson Jost, Chris Bigras and A.J. Greer, all of whom have little NHL experience. There’s also Alex Kerfoot and Andrei Mironov, who have no NHL experience, though the latter does have professional KHL experience.
Most of the players on the Colorado Avalanche roster are known for being speedy, and quite a few of them are renowned for their puck skills. That’s definitely going to be part of the profile of the team moving forward.