Casey Mittelstadt made his preseason debut on Thursday in the Avalanche’s 3-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights.
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We’ve wondered all season who the wingers on his line would be. And in his first game, head coach Jared Bednar put Nikolai Kovalenko and Ross Colton on the wing to make up the second line. Colton, who spent the entire 2023-24 season playing center for the Avs, fared well in his first look on the wing. And it was all made possible because offseason acquisition Parker Kelly proved he could handle the third-line center role.
There’s no question that the Avs are facing somewhat of a depleted lineup to start the year. Already waiting for Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin, the team announced at the start of camp that Artturi Lehkonen would also not be ready to start the season — albeit his injury isn’t expected to keep him out long. Without the trio of top-six wingers, Colorado has spent the past two weeks trying to find the right pieces to fill in the top six. Already with Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, Jonathan Drouin, and Mittelstadt, Bednar has two spots to fill before the season opens in Vegas on Wednesday.
Kovalenko seems to have one spot all but locked up at this point. But the second is where things get interesting. If, in fact, Colton is the second winger on Mittelstadt’s line, then where does that leave 19-year-old Calum Ritchie? The natural center could very well play up the middle on the third line with Logan O’Connor and Miles Wood. But then Parker Kelly would be dropped down to the fourth line, likely with Joel Kiviranta and potentially Ivan Ivan. I originally thought Pierre-Edouard Bellemare would center the fourth line but the team released him from his PTO on Thursday.
There’s also the possibility that Wood is demoted to the fourth line. The winger hasn’t had a great camp and seems to have lost a bit of trust from the coaching staff. And considering how Kelly looked playing with O’Connor in Vegas, the duo might stay together. So there’s a scenario where perhaps Kelly and O’Connor are both on the wing and centered by Ritchie. In that particular case, the fourth line would probably be made up of Wood, Kiviranta, and centerman Chris Wagner. Or, Ivan could slot in ahead of Kiviranta, who also hasn’t stuck out much in training camp.
Either way, the Avs would be smart to use Colton on the wing to start the season until they figure out if Ritchie has what it takes to play center. If the rookie struggles, he can flip spots with Colton as the team awaits the return of Lehkonen. Once he’s back, Ritchie could be re-assessed before hitting the nine-game mark and burning the first year of his entry-level contract.
Regardless of which way Bednar goes with the many, many options he has, the reality is, the Avalanche are going to start the season looking nothing like the team that was eliminated by the Dallas Stars last May. And by the time the 2025 postseason comes around, the team will likely look a heck of a lot different than it will on Wednesday. They’ll just have to weather the storm for the time being and hope to have both Lehkonen and Nichushkin back by Thanksgiving. It’s a good thing the reigning MVP is centering their top line.
On defense, Bednar’s decision seems to be a lot easier. Oliver Kylington again struggled against the Golden Knights and will likely be a healthy scratch on Wednesday. How long it takes for him to be inserted into the lineup will be determined by how he does in the practices following Wednesday’s opener. And of course, the play of his competition.
Erik Brannstrom, who left Wednesday’s practice with an injury, was also not quite earning his spot in the lineup. Alternatively, Sam Malinski has stepped up in a big way and veteran defenseman Calvin de Haan has quietly shown that he could be trusted.
My projected lineup for opening night:
Drouin – MacKinnon – Rantanen
Kovalenko – Mittelstadt – Colton
O’Connor – Ritchie – Kelly
Wood – Wagner – Ivan
Toews – Makar
Girard – Manson
de Haan – Malinski
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