The Avalanche on Saturday reduced the training camp roster to 37 players by assigning five players to the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League.
Defenseman Duncan Siemens was among those sent to the Cleveland-based team. The second of the Avalanche's two first-round picks in the 2011 NHL draft -- Gabriel Landeskog was taken second overall -- Siemens didn't play in either of the first two preseason games.
A physical 6-foot-3, 200-pounder, Siemens was the 11th player selected in that draft. The Avalanche has high hopes for Siemens, who just turned 20 two weeks ago and could use a full year of seasoning at the AHL level. He had three goals, 29 assists, 109 penalty minutes and a plus-31 plus/minus rating in 70 games last season with Saskatoon in the Western Hockey League.
Siemens wasn't going to make it to the NHL this year, but it would have been nice to get to see him play in at least one preseason game.
The other players assigned to Lake Erie: defensemen Gabriel Beaupre, Markus Lauridsen and Karl Stollery, and center Michael Sgarbossa.
Chris Bigras, the Avalanche's second-round pick in the 2013 NHL draft, remains in the running for a spot on the big club. He's averaging about 20 minutes of ice time in two games and owns a plus-1 rating. Though he didn't play as well Friday against Los Angeles as he did in the first game against Anaheim, Bigras picked up his first assist and got stronger as the game progressed.
*****
Goalie Semyon Varlamov is scheduled to play the entire game Sunday night when the Avalanche plays the Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center. Varlamov stopped 22 of 24 shots against the Ducks in a 2-1 loss on Wednesday, with both goals coming on power plays.
The Ducks went 2-for-7 with the man advantage in that game, and the Los Angeles Kings were 2-for-6 on power plays Friday in the Avalanche's 4-3 overtime win.
Penalties were costly against the Ducks and could have cost the Avalanche against the Kings. Ryan O'Reilly came to the rescue Friday with a
spectacular shorthanded goal in overtime after defenseman Andre Benoit was penalized for elbowing with 1:02 remaining in the third period.
"Penalties in the neutral zone and in the offensive zone, you don't like them," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said. "You don't want them, for sure. Sometimes you have no choice and you have to take one. I call those good penalties. There's good and bad penalties. But the penalty at the end (Friday) could have cost us the game."
The Avalanche has been penalized 15 times in the first two games totaling 30 minutes. The Ducks took four minor penalties in the first game and the Kings eight minors in the second.
*****
Avalanche defensemen combined for a measly four goals last season, so it was a good sign Friday when Benoit opened the scoring with a shot through traffic 26 seconds into the game. Benoit, who was signed as a free agent, scored from the top of the faceoff circles.
Roy has been exhorting the forwards to plant bodies in front of the net to screen goalies and increase his defensemen's odds of scoring.
"I mentioned to the guys, 'How many goals did our 'D' score last year?' We didn't score too many," Roy said. "It's also the responsibility of our forwards. I said to our forwards, 'If we put a hundred pucks at the blue line (with a goalie in the crease) and I'm asking you to take those shots, how many do you think we're going to put in?' The guys said, 'Maybe two or three max.' That means if we put traffic in front of the net, then obviously we're going to see a big difference in our production from our defensemen."
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • 
Join the Discussion:
»