Colorado Avalanche: Reaction to 2 Sets of Reassignments
The Colorado Avalanche have cut their preseason team by 10 players. We’re getting closer to the final roster by the day.
The Colorado Avalanche started their season with a fizzle, and I missed it. I was out of town for a few days and couldn’t keep up. But, I guess there was nothing much to watch. (Quick reminder — Colorado won all five of their preseason games before the 48-Point Debacle Season, so preseason really means nothing.)
So, as always happens this time of year, teams digest everything they’ve seen at training camp and, for some, the first preseason game. And they make their first cuts. In the case of the Avalanche, they’ve made two rounds already for a total of 10 players reassigned.
The first round came before Colorado’s first preseason game against the Vegas Golden Knights — the 5-0 fizzle I mentioned earlier. Here they are:
- Josh Anderson, D
- Travis Barron, LW
- Josh Dinckinson, C
- Brandon Saigeon, C
- Igor Shvyrev, C
- Trent Miner, G
All of those players returned to the Colorado Eagles except for Trent Miner. He was one of Colorado’s picks this season. So, as a teenager, he returned to his major juniors team, the WHL Vancouver Giants.
I’d say of that first round, most of the names weren’t surprising. Miner isn’t ready. And those top three players are probably career AHLers.
Igor Shvyrev surprised me a little bit because I thought he showed well at training camp. The really surprising name, though, was Brandon Saigeon. He at least got one preseason game last year. I thought he looked good at camp.
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Maybe it’s a testimony to how far he’s fallen in the Avalanche’s estimation. Despite an impressive season in the OHL last year (99 points), the franchise offered him only an AHL contract.
Anyway, after the loss to Vegas, the Colorado Avalanche made another round of cuts, this time four players:
- Sasha Larocque, D
- Alex Beaucage, RW
- Luka Burzan, C/RW
- Sasha Mutala, RW
Larocque has a contract with the Eagles, so he returned to Loveland. The other three returned to their major juniors teams — all of them were draftees this summer, so that’s not too surprising.
Three of the draftees from this year are at college, so we won’t see them in the preseason. However, we have one last draft pick from this year who’s still with the team — fourth-overall draftee Bowen Byram.
Byram also played in the game against Vegas and… he didn’t exactly shine. He scored an own goal to start the contest and got burned in the third for the final Knights goal. Oops.
However, as we all know, Byram’s leash is much longer. At the time of writing, the Colorado Avalanche hadn’t released their roster for the second preseason game, against the Dallas Stars. I doubt Byram will play then, but I’m sure he’ll show up one or, more likely, twice more times in the preseason.
Next. 5 Things I'd Like to See in the Preseason. dark
The team is now at 47 players. They’ll need to trim that down to 23 players by the conclusion of the preseason — so cut that number in half, basically. After the next couple games, I’m sure Colorado will start making some deep cuts.