OffThePost.org

Okay, so there were some cuts!

No real surprising names on there except maybe Gianni Fairbrother (Good Lord now that is a moniker), who actually impressed a few people who watched him in preseason. Probably a callup in his future if things go well in Loveland.

Big Finnish forward Saku Maenalanen signed a PTO, but that apparently was nixed because he underwent offseason surgery four months ago and per CBA rules he has to be on the shelf for five months, not four, so he failed his physical despite feeling fine and ready to play. So he signed in Europe and that's that.

Avs roll out their C-Squad in Minnesota and yet still make it kinda interesting in a 4-2 preseason loss. Meh.

One guy who's having an absolutely disastrous camp is NCAA FA signee Sam Malinski. Dude took four penalties in the team's first preseason game and apparently did not impress last night either. I don't think expectations are super-high or anything but I'm sure they were hoping for something better than this. It'll be up to Aaron Schneekloth and the Eagles to develop him once he's cut, which should happen soon.

Final preseason contest in the books, looks like this will be the opening night roster:

Drouin - MacKinnon - Rantanen
Lehkonen - Johansen - Nichushkin
Wood - Colton - Tatar
Tufte - Olofsson - O'Connor
MacDermid

Toews - Makar
Byram - Manson
Girard - JJ
Hunt

Georgiev
Annunen

IR: Cogliano
LTIR: Francouz, Landeskog

I haven't seen much of Johansen, but I have a feeling he's going to dazzle on some night and absolutely frustrate on a lot of others. It's kinda telling that the Preds not only traded him to a division rival for literally nothing, they retained half his salary in order to do so. It's a worthy gamble by the Avs but I have some serious doubts.

Also looks like they're just gonna go with Justus "Department" Annunen as the backup goalie. No idea how that's gonna go.

All in all, this looks like a much better team on paper than last season, but still not the same as the Cup-winning roster from two years ago.

Correction, THIS is the Avs' opening night lineup.



Didn't realize the Avs claimed Ivan Prosvetov from AZ off waivers and will go with three goalies for the time being. They also placed Landeskog and Francouz on LTIR, and Cogliano on IR, so that freed up some cap room to recall Riley Tufte, who recently cleared waivers.

Actually, wait even THIS might not be right because the Avs recently dealt minor leaguer Callahan Burke to Carolina in exchange for defenseman Caleb Jones. Some good familial connections there as Caleb of course is the brother of Seth Jones and the son of current Denver Nuggets assistant coach Popeye Jones.

Well, here we go...the official END of the offseason.