With the 193rd pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, the Colorado Avalanche took defenseman Chris Romaine.
It took a while, bit the Colorado Avalanche have finally made their first selection of the 2022 NHL Draft. The team has selected defense man Chris Romaine from Milton Academy (Massachusetts) of the HIGH-MA amateur league.
With their first selection of the draft (6th round, 193rd overall), the #Avs select Chris Romaine from Milton Academy in Massachusetts.
— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) July 8, 2022
Romaine has committed to playing hockey at Providence until he is ready to play for the Avalanche.
Romaine started his hockey journey in 2013, when he was with the Boston Jr. Bruins of the Brick Invitational League. There, he played in six games, scoring one goal and two assists.
In 2016-17, Romaine played for the South Shore Kings of the QC Int PW League, and then in 2018-19, he was in the Hockey Essentials-U15 league.
His game evolved later on, as he played 20 games at Milton Academy in 2019-20 and had seven assists. He played in 31 games during the 2019-20 season for the Cape Cod Whalers, scoring four goals and 12 assists.
As a member of the Cape Cod Whalers of the U16 AAA league, Romaine played in 34 games, scoring two goals and assisting on 16 goals.
Finally, the following season consisted of Romaine playing in 41 games for the South Shore Kings U18 and Milton Academy. He scored 11 goals, including nine at Milton Academy, as well as 19 assists during that time.
Colorado Avalanche add a goalie with final pick in 2022 NHL Draft
The Colorado Avalanche won’t be re-signing goaltender Darcy Kuemper after trading for Alexandar Georgiev from the New York Rangers.
That did not stop them from using the final pick in the 2022 NHL Draft on goaltender Ivan Zhigalov from the Sherbrooke Phoenix of the QMJHL. Zhigalov originally started playing hockey in Russia out of the Russia U16 league. He played for the Dynamo Moskva for seven seasons.
Welcome, Ivan Zhigalov!#GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/3pkexQc8L8
— Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) July 8, 2022
For the Sherbrooke Phoenix this season, Zhigalov played in 42 games, registering a 2.84 goal against average and a save percentage of .892. He finished the season with 26 wins, nine losses and three ties.
The Avalanche will use Pavel Francouz as their starting goalie for this season while Georgiev will be a backup and potentially start some games.