It's Almost Here!

We are now just over 48 hours away from NHL opening night! The Avs will be hosting the Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks on October 7th as part of NHL opening night festivities. The Avs will be holding a reunion for the members of the 1996 Cup champion team which involves a dinner for the players on Wednesday night. Then prior to the game on Thursday, they will be doing a ceremony to honor the players.

The opening night action will be nationally televised on Versus (although I imagine the ceremony will not be aired since there will be a game on right before the Avs game). It has been 6 long months since we last saw the Avs play a game (give or take a week), so whether you are attending the game in person or just watching it on TV it will be good to see the boys in burgundy and blue back on the ice.

If the lines that were used during training camp and the Burgundy and White game hold true the top two lines should be Stastny-Stewart-Galiardi and Duchene-Hejduk-Jones (Jones in place of Peter Mueller who is out with a concussion...again). Milan Hejduk missed the end of the preseason with a back injury, but will hopefully be ready to go for opening night. Kyle Cumiskey missed training camp, but was back on the ice during the preseason.

The roster has been trimmed down to size with many players going back to their minor or junior teams. The open spot for the 7th defenseman has gone to Norwegian Jonas Holos. It will be interesting to see if Holos is on the ice for opening night in place of one of the other defensemen or whether he will be rotated into games occasionally. The two forwards who are still on the roster are Phillipe Dupuis (who played a few games for the Avs last year during injuries) and Mark Olver (who was drafted by the Avs in 2008). One of them may be cut eventually or else Peter Mueller will need to placed on the injured reserve to get the roster down to 23 players.