Colorado Avalanche Post to Post ’19: Best Preseason Social Media Highlights Week 2

The Colorado Avalanche have now completed all of their preseason games. We look back at some of the team’s social media highlights of the past week.

After a successful Charity Golf Tournament the Colorado Avalanche dived straight back into practice ahead of their next preseason game. After being sidelined with a lower body injury just as he had finished recovering from shoulder surgery, Colin Wilson was finally back in a regular contact jersey.

Erik Johnson and Nikita Zadorov were also both back in regular contact jerseys after being out with injuries.

Zadorov, often referred to as a menace by the social media team, was quick to slide back into that role.

Everyone was clearly glad to be back on the ice, and what better way to end practice than with a group hug.

Pavel Francouz appeared on the Avalanche’s official podcast Odd Man Rush this week. The broadcast team have said they’re aiming to have a player appear on the podcast every other week during the regular season.

The team hit the road with an away game in Vegas, which meant it was time for more airport suit photos. Most of the team opted for a slightly more casual look with not many ties to be seen.

With the veterans being rotated for the preseason games it was time for Nikita Zadorov, Matt Calvert and Matt Nieto to wear the A on their jerseys.

The social media team likes to tweet gifs of celebration hugs, and have their own hashtag for it. The tag makes a comeback this season and I, for one, am glad to see it. Nothing warms the heart quite like hockey players hugging on the ice.

This week the Avalanche held their annual Fan Fest. This is an opportunity for fans to meet the broadcast team, listen to a Q&A with Coach Bednar and watch the team practice on the ice at Pepsi Center. It’s a fun event, very family friendly, and an excellent way to draw in new fans as well as giving everyone a chance to see the new roster in a setting that’s a little more informal than a game.

Ahead of the Fan Fest event the social media team posted a series of videos to introduce the new members of the roster.

The team was clearly in good spirits, with best friends J.T. Compher and Tyson Jost up to their usual shenanigans.

Although he was back in a regular contact jersey at practice earlier in the week, Fan Fest was Colin Wilson’s first full practice with the whole team. It was good to see him back.

I’m still not sure what’s happening here but not knowing is part of the fun, I think.

And, again here, these photos are far more amusing without any context.

And a perfect photo to finish off a fun event. This one is now the header for the team’s Twitter account. It’s also one of the few photos that made it onto the team’s Tumblr.

https://coloradoavalanche.tumblr.com/post/187975769658/we-wont-take-a-better-photo-this-season-we

It’s always fun when the social media team has the same emotional reaction to things as the fans do. When I first saw these photos I had a spike of alarm too, but everything is fine.

Ian Cole, who had surgery on both his hips over the summer, wasn’t expected to play until December at the earliest. Yet here he is in a regular contact jersey on the ice. As you can see the media team handled this news exactly as you would expect.

As I mentioned over the summer, Andre Burakovsky is a talented hockey player, but he doesn’t always make the best decisions off the ice and would probably benefit from a Team Dad to keep an eye on him. It looks like Gabriel Landeskog has taken on that role.

It’s the logical choice, really. As well as being the team captain, Landeskog is also Swedish and, with the departure of Carl Soderberg, Burakovsky is now the only other Swede on the Avalanche roster. Let’s hope Landeskog will be around to stop Burakovsky getting into stranger’s cars and to make sure he dresses appropriately for the cold Denver winter.

It doesn’t matter that Landeskog is only a couple of years older than Burakovsky. Team Dad is a state of mind rather than a state of being.

Last season Colin Wilson joked he wasn’t going to wear a shirt in any of his locker room interviews, and then stuck to that promise. It seems that will continue this season as well. It’ll give him a chance to show off his new shoulder scar.

The team hit the road again for their final preseason game, and this time the Avalanche were playing with an almost full NHL roster. Which meant we got to enjoy one of Nikita Zadorov’s suits at the airport.

Tyson Jost was also looking sharp in pinstripe.

Of course Gabriel Landeskog leaves them all behind.

If this photo of Nazem Kadri is anything to go by we are going to see some excellent suit photos from him this season.

It was good to see Erik Johnson back on the road with the team.

This almost feels like a regular season game.

It’s a tradition that if you make a mistake on the ice during warmups you have to do push-ups as penance. Last season Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog collided into each other, and they both had to do push-ups as a result. This led to a (joking) Twitter argument between the two players over whose fault the collision was.

Last night Nathan MacKinnon slipped and fell during warmups and had to pay the same price. At least he can’t try and blame someone else for that.

During the game news broke that Mikko Rantanen had finally re-signed with the team after a lengthy contract negotiation. While several media outlets were reporting the news, the team social media weren’t allowed to say anything until all the necessary paperwork was signed and confirmed. So while they waited we got content like this.

Finally it was official!

Back to the preseason game that was still taking place while everyone was talking about Mikko. This game was not televised so there’s no footage of Nazem Kadri or Andre Burakovsky scoring their first goals in Avalanche jerseys. The social media team felt our pain.

The first Colorado Avalanche regular season game takes place on October 3rd at 7pm MT.