The Colorado Avalanche have submitted their opening night roster ahead of Wednesday’s season opener against the Los Angeles Kings. Here’s the breakdown.
For the forward group, the Avalanche have Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas, Artturi Lehkonen, Jaden Schwartz, Brock Nelson, Nazem Kadri, Gabriel Landeskog, Fedor Svechkov, Parker Kelly, Nicolas Roy and T.J. Hughes.
On the defensive side, the Avs will have the same top pairing as they’ve had for several years now with Cale Makar and Devon Toews. Josh Manson and Brent Burns are the true veterans of the group (the older guys). Brett Kulak and Sam Malinski make up some more depth for the squad. Additionally, the Avs have Noah Juulsen as a seventh defenseman right now.
Colorado will have their same duo at goaltender as they have had for the past couple of seasons in Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. As far as names that were never going to be a surprise, the goaltending room is right up there alongside MacKinnon, Landeskog and Makar.
You will notice that there are a couple of names I haven’t mentioned. That is because they are currently banged up.
Logan O’Connor is perhaps the most familiar name on that part of the list. O’Connor is day-to-day with a lower-body injury. This comes after LOC had dealt with several other injuries in the past including to his hips. Those injuries required him to have surgery.
Forward Zachary L’Heureux, Taylor Makar, Trent Miner, and Georgii Merkulov are also on the injury/non-roster list.
O’Connor and L’Heureux have been placed on injured reserve.
In total, the Avalanche have rostered 20 players right now. The thinking is that they want to preserve some cap space for something later down the road. It’s a smart tactic because unforseen things may happen throughout the course of the season that will make the team in need of some extra money to spend.
Per NHL rules, teams must roster a minimum of 20 players at a given time during the season. The maximum number of players allowed on the active roster is 23. There will be some moves early on in the regular season, so we’ll see what the team ends up doing with that in mind.
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