Avalanche Practice Notes 2/29/12

On Wednesday, AJ and I went to the Avalanche practice to check out the new guy, Jamie McGinn. I took some videos of McGinn, as well as Semyon Varlamov and some random drills. I also snapped a picture of Jean-Sebastien Giguere's new mask. For a full run-down of observations, hit up the MHH Twitter feed (@milehighhockey).

Above you can see Jiggy's new mask. Not the greatest picture, but I have yet to buy a telephoto lens. Best I could do. Next is a quick video of McGinn. He's skating with David Jones (RW) and Mark Olver (C) in a puck possession drill. He's the one closest to the camera to start.

Here's an interesting drill. Matt Duchene (white jersey), Tyson Barrie (black jersey), Kevin Porter (grey jersey) and ?? (let me know if you can figure it out) are working their stickhandling by moving a puck through an obstacle course and then shooting at the center of a tire. Be forewarned: there's a bit of camera movement as I tried to get into a position where I wasn't blocked. Seemed like the guys purposely kept moving in front of me. Bastards.

At the end of the video, you see Erik Johnson grabbing the second tire. This is what he and Stefan Elliott used it for:

Our resident Varly fans asked for some video on him, so here ya go ladies!

And finally, the boys ended regular practice with a fun shoot-out drill. In this video, you'll see Jiggy deny Matt Hunwick with a late-second stick save. Hunwick had actually been doing a great job at beating both goalies most of the practice, and in a later slap shot drill, hit the net about 15 times in a row. He has a surprisingly hard shot. After Hunwick, the new guy shows the boys how it's done, and Ryan Wilson sneaks one in just under the cross bar.

(PLEASE forgive the audio exuberance and the blurriness. It was a fun drill, and I pretty much forgot I was videotaping for ya'll.)