Colorado Avalanche Center Tyson Jost Shows off Skills in Practice

Colorado Avalanche forward Tyson Jost showed off some of his skating and stick skills during an optional practice before the team’s road trip.

The Colorado Avalanche held an optional on-ice practice today before the team took off for their western Canadian road trip. Participants of the practice included Vladislav Kamenev, Alexander Kerfoot, Gabriel Bourque, Mark Barberio, Sheldon Dries, and Tyson Jost.

The Avalanche’s new skills coach, Shawn Allard, ran the practice today. He set up a system of tires, padded foam, and sticks for the players to run drills.

It turned out to be a great format for Jost to show off some of his skills. All of the above players participated, but Jost, and Kerfoot to a point, were the standouts in skating and puck handling.
Jost hasn’t played a game since the October 26 game against the Ottawa Senators, when he missed the entire third period with what turned out to be a head injury. He’s missed a total of three games — those two four-day breaks can in handy for his recovery.

In any case, the format was ideal for showing off Jost’s skating style, which is something I’ve always admired. He has a bit of a unique style in that he bends over more than other players, which lends a certain dynamism to his skating:

In practice I contrasted him with Vladislav Kamenev, whom some Avalanche fans propose as a replacement in the second line for Jost — he did make one appearance there when the Avs played in Calgary. Anyway, there’s a lot more to the game than skating, but that’s a skill emphasis for Colorado, so here’s Kamenev in the same drill:

Vladislav Kamenev is by no means a bad skater. However, I just get more of a hulky impression from his style, likely because he’s 6-foot-2 to Jost’s 5-foot-11. And he doesn’t bend over as much.

Anyway, Josts’ skating reminds me a little of Matt Duchene’s in its dynamic nature. Here’s another example:

I’m not going to say he has Duchene’s speed, but the style is a little similar.

Jost also showed off some of his puck handling:

It looks to me here that the goal was to work on how to maneuver around defenders.

This drill was a slight failure:

But he later recovered:

More from Mile High Sticking

So, I’ve been remarking lately that I’m not sure about the development of young talent that the team is implementing right now. In fact, I remarked that I think the team isn’t doing a good job of developing its talent.

Well, Shawn Allard is actually a new hire by the Colorado Avalanche. They brought him on partially as a replacement for David Oliver, their former director of player development who left over the summer to join the New York Rangers.

According to Avs insider Adrian Dater, the team still intends to hire a new director of player development. However, as of right now, they don’t have one — they just have a skills coach. Is it really any stretch, then, to say that a young team without a director of player development might have some holes in how they’re developing the plethora of young, still-green talent they have?

Anyway, part of the reason I focused on Jost in practice is because I’ve felt he needs to be the recipient of that development. Well, as I stated in a previous post, Jost is the kind of young man who’s driven and who will seek out what he needs if it’s not being offered up. Here he is getting a little one-on-one attention from Allard to practice tip-in drills:

Tyson Jost is not afraid of getting into the dirty areas in front of the net and “cleaning up the garbage” to make a goal.

Jost has been skating off and on with the team for more than a week, first with the no-contact jersey, but lately in full practice. It was thought he could return for Nashville, but that didn’t happen. However, he did travel with the team to Canada where they’ll play first the Winnipeg Jets and then the Edmonton Oilers.