The most significant news from the Avalanche's morning skate today: highly-regarded defenseman Chris Bigras was reassigned to his junior team, Owen Sound in the Ontario Hockey League, and first-round draft pick Nathan MacKinnon is expected to play Thursday in Dallas and Saturday in Las Vegas against Los Angeles. MacKinnon has been nursing a hip flexor injury.

Bigras, 18, was the Avalanche's second-round pick in the 2013 NHL draft and impressed coach Patrick Roy and his staff, but they felt it would be better for him to go back to Owen Sound for more seasoning.

"What a training camp he had," Roy said. "I was so happy with him. That's what I said to him this morning. The thing that impressed me the most, even if he got beat, he was resilient. He never gave up. He was back and he was tough. I think he's pretty close. If he would have been 20 years old he probably would be close to having a spot on our team. But I think it's important for him to have another year of junior and play a bigger role, a larger role on his junior team. We believe he will play for us one day."

Roy said MacKinnon could have played tonight against Dallas at the Pepsi Center, "but we didn't want to push it too fast. We just want to be cautious," he said.

The Avalanche also reassigned center Paul Carey to the Lake Erie Monsters in the American Hockey League. The Avalanche now has 28 players on the roster and will need to get down to 23 for the Oct. 2 season opener against Anaheim.

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Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere will make his preseason debut tonight against the Stars, with rookie Sami Aittokallio dressing as the backup. Roy said Semyon Varlamov would start Thursday in Dallas and Giguere will get the start Saturday in Las Vegas against the Kings.

"It's preparation for the season and it's absolutely necessary to do before we start the year," Giguere said. "It's going to tell me where I'm at with my preparation. Hopefully I've done enough so far to be comfortable for the whole 60 minutes."

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Center Marc-Andre Cliche, who was claimed off waivers from the Kings on Sunday, will be in the lineup tonight.

Roy said he told Cliche this morning that he expects him to be the team's 13th forward at the start but will have an opportunity to move up based on his play.

"We wanted someone with size and he's been a great leader everywhere he's been," Roy said of Cliche, who is 6-feet and 202 pounds. "He works hard and we just feel he's a right-handed shooter and will help on faceoffs. He knows he's the 13th forward right now for us. It was clear when I met him this morning and it will be up to him to show what he can do.

"I think he's going to help on the (penalty killing). He's a very good PK guy. My philosophy on PK is, I like the top two lines to play on the power play and I love to see my third and fourth lines playing on the PK. Then I think everyone feels important and has an important role to play. I think it's healthy for your team. We had no guys that could take draws on the right side on PK and I think it will help in that area."

Cliche, 26, had 10 goals, 10 assists and 46 penalty minutes in 57 games last season with the AHL's Manchester Monarchs. Except for one game with the Kings in 2009-10, Cliche has spent all six years of his professional career with Manchester.

Cliche said this morning that he was taken aback to hear that the Avalanche had claimed him.

"You never expect to get picked up on waivers, especially with no NHL experience really," he said. "During training camp especially. I was sitting at home with my dad and we didn't believe it for the first 20 minutes until Patrick called me. I'm really, really happy and excited.

"It's a clean slate. I've been with the Kings for six years and now starting fresh like this, it's a really good opportunity and I'm going to try and work as hard as I can every day and show what I can do."

All Cliche has ever wanted was a chance to show he can play at the NHL level.

"LA has a really good young team and they've been together for the last three or four years," he said. "That stuff happens. You look around the league and there's guys that never got a chance. Sometimes a door opens and now I have to try and walk through it."

Roy pointed out that Cliche was a captain with Manchester and brings leadership skills.

"Look at LA," he said. "They have a lot of depth. This is a good team. He could probably be on a lot of teams and play in the NHL. We'll give him a chance and it will be up to him to show what he can do. I'm certainly not going to be in his way to move up in the lineup."

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Check out my Semyon Varlamov story at http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=683853

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