|
Francouz starts Saturday; Bellemare LBI; lines adjusting |
|
|
Rick Sadowski
 Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSS
• Archive
• CONTACT
|
|
|
Some news from practices Friday (still two groups with 47 players in camp):
* Pavel Francouz will be in goal Saturday when the Avalanche play in Minnesota. Coach Jared Bednar said Francouz is scheduled to play the entire game. Philipp Grubauer had 21 saves Thursday in Colorado's 2-1 loss to Dallas.
* Center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare sustained what sounds like a minor lower-body injury Thursday and is day-to-day. He had a goal, a fight and won eight of nine face-offs. "He took a maintenance day today to get worked on,” Bednar said.
* Defenseman Nikita Zadorov (lower body) did some skating on his own and isn’t ready to join all the drills. “Hopefully he’s going to join the group soon,” Bednar said. “He seems to be making a little progress.”
* Defenseman Erik Johnson (shoulder surgery) took part in all the drills while wearing a non-contact jersey. “We’re going to try to get him into an exhibition game at the end of the exhibition schedule,” Bednar said. “Hopefully he’s ready to go opening night.”
*****
Players are still adjusting to new line combinations, with at least one new player on each line. That was the case Thursday when the Avalanche had 47 shots on goal in the loss to Dallas.
“You’re looking for chemistry on those lines,” Bednar said. “We’re going to play with some different combinations as we go through camp, see what we like, see what we don’t and adjust from there. That feeling-out process may work into the regular season too. We have certain spots where we see guys, but their play’s going to have to do the talking.
“Last night I liked a lot of the things that we did, but we still have some -- I call them summer habits, bad habits. We’re still rolling away from the puck in D-zone coverage a little bit. Our habits were not great in a lot of areas. On the other side of it, I thought we did some good things in the offensive zone, but we didn’t get to the net as much as I would like.”
Andre Burakovsky has replaced unsigned Mikko Rantanen on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog. MacKinnon had three shots Thursday, Landeskog and Burakovsky two each.
“The one thing that takes a little bit (of time) is probably just getting him up to speed on things that we’re trying to do out there,” Landeskog said. “That’s never easy for anyone, diving into a different system and changing certain things. It takes a period of time to get that, and I think that’s what we’re trying to figure out right now.
“He’s a great guy and he works hard and he wants to be here and is really excited to be here. He’s not the only new guy on the team, there’s a lot of guys trying to figure out the systems and trying to figure out what we’re trying to do, how we want to play and whatnot. I’m trying to do my part in helping him out.”
Burakovsky has good size at 6-feet-3 and 201 pounds (Rantanen is 6-4, 215), but Landeskog said they are “two different players” in terms of style.
“I’d say that Burky has a lot of speed, a lot of skill, he can beat guys one-on-one,” he said. “He’s like Mikko with his size, strong in the corners, strong on the puck, he can come up with pucks and at the same time he’s a threat to score. Two elite players.”
Bednar said the top line “had flashes” Thursday in its preseason debut.
“They did some good things,” he said. “That line looked like they were feeling it out still. They did some good things on the offensive side of the puck, they overhandled the puck at times. They were a little bit too cute for my liking at times as well. Our shot mentality wasn’t quite there with that line as it was with the other lines, but they looked like they played pretty good.”
Join the Discussion:
»