Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic said Thursday that he would like to add "a puck-management forward and a solid D-man" before the Feb. 29 NHL trading deadline.

But the chances of landing a top-four defenseman, he said, are unrealistic.

"We tried," Sakic said. "I tried to get a No. 1. They don't want to do it. I wouldn't do it either. Teams aren't giving those guys up. But just to add some more depth, we've been trying to do (that) and we'll continue to try. We'd like to help out our back end a little bit and also depth up front."

Sakic said he isn't opposed to trading for rental players, but he won't give up a high draft pick to accomplish it.

"Still a lot of need for organizational depth and we're building towards that," he said. "We're not going to move first- and second-round picks for rental players."

Sakic said, because the races for playoff positions are so tight in both conferences, that teams are in the process of figuring out what they can do before the deadline.

"We've been trying to add some pieces here to help the team, so we'll see where that goes," he said. "It just seems that right now with so many teams in it, there's not a lot of teams out of it right now, so everybody's just deciding where they're going to go. I'm not trading high picks and some of our top prospects for rental players. If we're going to move some of those guys, it's going to have to be for a player or two that are going to help us down the line."

Sakic said the fact that the Avalanche have the NHL maximum 50 players under contract isn't an issue when it comes to making trades.

"It's easy for teams to take on another contract in the last year of their deal," he said.

*****

The Avalanche on Thursday sent goalie Reto Berra to San Antonio in the AHL on a two-week conditioning assignment and assigned defenseman Nate Guenin there.

Berra has been sidelined since sustaining an ankle injury Dec. 21 while kicking a soccer ball around with teammates at the Pepsi Center before the Avalanche played Toronto. In order to activate him from injured reserve and clear a spot on the 23-man roster, the Avalanche needed to make a move and demoted Guenin. He cleared waivers twice in the past five weeks and has been a healthy scratch since Jan. 12.

Sakic said of Berra: "He needs to play and get his conditioning up. He's going to go down for two weeks and work on his game and then come back up. Calvin (Pickard) has played great as well, so we'll see how that plays out."

Coach Patrick Roy said Pickard will start Saturday when the Avalanche play Edmonton to open a two-game road trip. Semyon Varlamov will start Sunday in Vancouver.

Roy said he wasn't interested in speculating on who would be the backup goalie once Berra completes his conditioning assignment. He said the Avalanche "could" keep three goalies. "We'll see how it goes ... Pick has been playing really well for us."



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