All about Denver

During Patrick Roy’s post-game development meeting following Avalanche’s 2-1 shootout make an impression on St. Louis Friday evening, I asked the Colorado mentor what moves would-be made out of Erik Johnson considering be triggered and return to the lineup Saturday-night at Dallas.

His solution astonished me, honestly.

The Avalanche is coming back Nikita Zadorov toward San Antonio Rampage of American Hockey League. Zadorov, 20, played five games for Colorado in the 2nd stint because of the Avalanche in 2010, after he and Chris Bigras, additionally 20, had been recalled from Rampage Jan. 13. Zadorov was in fact using Francois Beauchemin at also strength.

“He has to play, ” Roy stated of Zadorov. “Bigras will remain for a little and we’ll see. We’ll let him still play. He played effectively again tonight.”

Roy included, “It’s the best thing for ‘Z.’ I thought Z performed most good stuff. We wish him become better using puck. We believed which he had a touch too numerous giveaways and now we desire him to focus at that along with his online game. He was better defensively and I think he’s heading inside correct course. We think he needs the full time down truth be told there to improve his game and still discover the overall game.”

Roy stated Johnson would step back into his regular pairing, with Beauchemin, therefore the move is easy, meaning others two pairs of late — Bigras with Nate Redmond, and Tyson Barrie with Nick Holden — will remain equivalent. Nate Guenin and Andrew Bodnarchuk continue to be utilizing the Avalanche as additional defensmen, at the very least for now.

My estimate had been that following the Avalanche did actually make a consignment to trying childhood on defense, Colorado would stay with that strategy and attempt to stay with Zadorov’s youthful errors and inconsistency. That will have meant Guenin, just who cleared waivers recently, or Bodnarchuk, stated on waivers from Columbus Jan. 5, or both, could have gone down to San Antonio.

Wrong.

Another element in all this is the fact that Guenin is quite preferred within the room and managed taking place waivers and dealing with possible demotion with reliability, and that it's obvious this is certainlyn’t going to be a man griping about becoming a healthier scratch and staying around as D-man insurance coverage.