Game on! Season opener is tomorrow

by David Driscoll-Carignan on Oct 8, 2008 11:43 AM MDT in Avalanche Previews

One thing about hockey: these long offseasons are unbearable! We last saw the Avs on May 1st and now, finally, after a long 5 months (yes, I'm kidding)...hockey is back.

The Avalanche host the Boston Bruins on Thursday night. The game will be on Versus. As some of you are aware, this is a double header game. Last year on opening night, the early game went to a shootout and didn't end until 9:48 eastern, so the Avs-Stars game was joined in progress about 10 minutes in. Thankfully, someone has finally figured out that 2 ½ hours is not enough time and the Avs game this year is starting a half hour later. And that's good, because there's NO reason for any game to get pre-empted, especially the first game of the year. Joe Beninati and Andrew Brickley will be in the booth (warning: Brick is a good color guy, but he is a big time homer when he covers the Bs).

As of this writing, the Bruins are still above the 23-man limit. One guy who I assume will be making the cut is former Avalanche Stephane Yelle - one of the last free agents to find a home this summer.

I talked about the Avs projected lineup yesterday.

Who's Hot? Ryan Smyth, Paul Stastny and David Jones have been hot in the preseason.

Who's Not? The Avs defense (6 points in 6 preseason games) and former Bruin Andrew Raycroft.

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The opening lineup last year:

Lines

Smyth, Sakic, Hejduk
Hlinka, Stastny, Brunette
Wolski, Arnason, Laperriere
Smith, Guite, Svatos

Clark, Hannan
Skrastins, Liles
Sauer, Leopold

Looking at that, you have to give Granato some credit. No matter what he ends up throwing out there tomorrow, I don’t see how it can be a poorly concieved as this one. Also, to put things in perspective I though Hlinka was the steal of the offseason after this game. I have to remind myself that opening day lineups have a tendancy to alter drastically by years end.