Meet the Rookies: The Rest of the Forwards

All day long I've been looking at the forwards attending the Avalanche rookie camp. So far, I've covered 7 of the notable forwards attending. Here's a quicker look at the remaining 7.

Phillipe Dupuis: 6'0" 196 lbs, Center, Age 24. Dupuis, acquired in 2008 for Mark Rycroft, played in 8 games with the Avalanche last year. He's scored 87 points in 164 AHL games (.53 PPG). Outlook: Dupuis is likely headed to Lake Erie but may be available for injury call-ups again this year.

Tom Fritsche: 5'11" 183lbs, Left Wings, Age 22 (turns 23 on 9/30). Fritcshe is another one of those forwards taken in the 2nd round of the 2005 draft (Stastny, Stao and Chris Durand being the others). He really hasn't garnered the ink that some of the other prospects have, but HF mentions his speed and offensive smarts. To date, he's scored 25 points in 63 AHL games (.40 PPG). Outlook: Headed to Lake Erie, but don't be surprised if he gets a call-up. He was injured last year when all the injury call-ups were happening, otherwise he might have gotten his shot as well.

Codey Burki: 6'0" 190lbs, Center, Age 22. Burki is one of the 2nd round draft picks acquired in the Alex Tanguay trade. So far, he hasn't panned out as he has just 28 points in 94 AHL games (.30 PPG). He was Colorado's 11th ranked prospect in the spring of 2007, but has since fallen out of the top 20. Outlook: My guess? This is the last time we'll see Burki at an Avalanche camp.

Cedric Lalonde-McNicoll: 5'10" 178lbs, Center, Age 21. McNicoll is an undersized, undrafted free agent from the Shawinigan Cataractes of the QMJHL. The Avalanche signed McNicoll to an entry-level contract in March. While McNicoll is small, he scored 264 points in his 249 game QMJHL career - 1.06 PPG. I don't know a ton about him, although he did win the QMJHL's sportsman of the year award and was a finalist for the MVP award. Plus, there's that whole hyphen thing he's got going for him. Outlook: He's a very intriguing free agent signing on a team with a terrible recent history with such players (Per Ledin, Jaroslav Hlinka). Perhaps the 3rd time is the charm?

Patrick Bordeleau, Dave Marshall, Josh Aspenlind: These final three guys are AHL contract players. Marshall and Aspenlind are smallish undrafted players who played a little with Lake Erie last year. Bordeleau is a big (6'6 / 220) winger drafted by the Wild in 2004. I'm not really sure what happened to him, but he played for 6 different AHL and ECHL teams last year (and was released by at least two AHL teams).