Colorado Avalanche Preseason 2 vs Minnesota: 3 Important Questions

The Colorado Avalanche host the Minnesota Wild in their fifth preseason game. With a mostly-NHL roster in place, the team should be answering some questions.

The Colorado Avalanche are facing the Minnesota Wild at home in their penultimate preseason game. As reported, the team has made the cuts necessary to shrink the roster down to 29 players.

The coaching staff has said all along that the team would be close to playing its NHL roster for the last two games of the regular season. That fits in with the fact of most of the “kids” already being send up to Loveland to join the Colorado Eagles in their training camp and preseason.

Now is the time for the NHLers to start to form their lines properly and implement the systems. It’s also the time for the coaching staff to evaluate who they want to use where.

So, with that in mind, let’s see what questions we want answered from this particular preseason game.

How to Enjoy the Game

Game time: September 28, 7:00 pm MT
TV Networks: Altitude TV
Radio: Altitude Radio (FM 92.5)

Who Will Earn the Final Roster Slots?

The Colorado Avalanche have under one week to get down to a slim 23 players from their current 29. Now, on the face of it, that means the team has to cut six players and send them to Loveland. However, they have some injury issues.

At the last report, Conor Timmins was still week-to-week with lingering concussion issues. They’ll probably have to put him on Injured Reserve. Last I heard, David Warsofsky and Anton Lindholm might also be fighting injuries. Whether or not either is significant enough to land them on IR remains to be seen.

That may leave Mark Alt as the lone defenseman driving up to Loveland in the next week.

For the forwards, they all appear to be healthy. So, of the 16 forwards left, some of them are fighting to stay in Denver while others are fighting to dress on opening night.

How Will Lines Start to Form?

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Barring something extraordinary, the top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, and Mikko Rantanen is set. After that, matters get a little muddled.

I’m guessing the checking line will still consist of Carl Soderberg and Matthew Nieto. However, their winger could be either Gabriel Bourque or Matt Culvert.

As far as I know, Tyson Jost is still the favorite for the second-line center. It was thought he’d skate with Alexander Kerfoot. However, the latter found good chemistry with J.T. Compher in the Vegas Golden Knights game. That’s not to say the three couldn’t skate together again.

We’ve still got Colin Wilson and Sven Andrighetto to plug into the roster. So, it really will be very interesting to see who starts to find real chemistry with linemates.

How Will Specialty Teams Shake Out?

Do all teams struggle with specialty teams every year? For the Colorado Avalanche, special teams are a definite hit or miss proposition. It’s either their strongest area or biggest area of weakness.

The Avs are playing the Minnesota Wild. We hate the Wild. The Avs hate the Wild. Minny likes to pretend they don’t hate us, but they always save some extra venom for our players.

Well, the Wild exacted their pound of flesh for the Avs embarrassing them last season in that 7-0 blowout over our AHL team. Tonight, though, we’re going to see veterans of that war that supposedly doesn’t matter. Expect some penalties on both sides.

So, we’ll get a chance to see how special teams shake out.

Next. Should the Preseason be Shorter?. dark

The Colorado Avalanche aren’t necessarily having a stellar preseason, having gone 1-3 so far. We don’t want to look too deeply into that. Other teams started earlier, and more than once the Avs were icing an AHL-heavy team against opening-night roster teams.

Tonight’s different. Let’s see how it pans out.

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