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Kerfoot looks like a keeper |
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Rick Sadowski
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The Avalanche made three more roster moves Tuesday and Alex Kerfoot is still here, as he should be.
Forwards Reid Petryk and Dominic Toninato were assigned to San Antonio of the AHL, and defenseman Conor Timmins, the Avalanche's 2017 second-round draft pick, was returned to Sault Ste. Marie of the OHL.
Kerfoot scored another goal Monday in the Avalanche's 4-2 win in Dallas, giving him four points (two goals, two assists) in three preseason games.
Yes, the Harvard grad is a smart guy, and he's fit right in on a line with Matt Duchene and another newcomer, Nail Yakupov.
The Avalanche are down to 29 players -- 16 forwards, 11 defensemen and two goalies -- with one preseason game remaining (Thursday in Las Vegas) before regular-season play begins Oct. 5 against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
If the Avalanche open with 14 forwards and seven defensemen on the 23-man roster, they'd need to make two roster moves up front.
My guess is Joe Colborne, who has been sidelined since hurting his back in the team's charity golf tournament (feel free to insert your own sarcastic comment here), would be put on injured reserve. Gabriel Bourque or A.J. Greer would be sent to the Rampage. If they keep 13 forwards and eight defensemen, Colborne can be put on IR and Bourque and Greer could go to San Antonio.
Either way, Kerfoot needs to stay.
New Jersey's fifth-round pick in 2012, Kerfoot snubbed the Devils -- just as University of Denver defenseman Will Butcher snubbed Colorado and signed with New Jersey -- and signed a two-year contract with the Avalanche as a free agent on Aug. 24.
"I was pretty excited with my talks with (general manager) Joe Sakic and (coach) Jared Bednar with where this organization is headed," said the 5-feet-10, 175-pound Kerfoot, who had 49 points (16 goals, 29 assists) in 36 games as a senior, and was a Hobey Baker Award finalist. "I was looking for a place where I thought I'd have an opportunity to play and also to develop as a player and a person. This organization is really putting an emphasis on character, on compete level and hockey sense.
"They told me they wanted to go young. They know where they stood in the standings last year (at the bottom with 48 points) and they don't want to be there for a long time. There's really good hockey players in this organization and last year is not going to be the norm for where this group is headed."
The Avalanche didn't give Kerfoot, who turned 24 last month, any guarantees about making the NHL roster, and he was fine with that.
"I just wanted to compete," he said. "They have an emphasis on compete level here, and I'm a really competitive kid. My hockey sense is probably the strength of my game, and I want to play a 200-foot game and compete every shift."
It's taken a little while for Kerfoot, who is from Vancouver, to adapt to new teammates and to being a pro, but it's been a smooth adjustment.
"It's definitely weird coming from college where you spend four years with the same group of guys," he said. "I'd never been to any development camps, never been to any rookie camps, and I didn't know many of the guys here. It's definitely a new experience and playing pro hockey is pretty exciting."
Fewer and fewer players are staying in college for four years before taking a crack at the NHL, but Kerfoot planned to stay all along and get a degree; he majored in economics.
"You know what you're getting yourself into when you go there," he said. "You try and get a degree -- that's something that's really hard to turn down. I knew I was going to be there for four years. I progressed as a player and as a person every year and I have no regrets about spending four years there. It never crossed my mind to leave early."
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