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Preseason Game 6: Avalanche at Flames

A very green Avalanche squad makes a trip to the Saddledome in search of their first preseason win.

By Cole D Hamilton
Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

It's a shame that of all the Avalanche's preseason games, this one won't be televised.  The Avalanche are sending a very inexperienced roster of prospects, rookies, and tweeners to Calgary this evening and it would have been fun, as a fan, to evaluate some of the guys who are trying to make a big impression.  We saw mostly veteran rosters in Quebec and likely will again in Colorado Springs and Los Vegas later this week as Patrick Roy looks to tune up the veterans in preparation for the season opener in Minnesota.  That means this is probably the last chance for guys like Redmond, Siemens, Hishon, Rendulic, Everberg, and Henley to try and win a spot. Here's a look at the Avs' roster tonight

For the hand writing impaired thats:

Alex Tanguay - Jesse Winchester - Daniel Briere

Andrew Agozzino - Joey Hishon - Borna Rendulic

Max Talbot - Marc Andre Cliche - Dennis Everberg

Michael Schumacher - Samuel Henley - Daniel Maggio

Jan Hejda - Nate Guenin

Ryan Wilson - Zach Redmond

Duncan Siemens - Maxim Noreau

Reto Berra

Calvin Pickard

It's interesting to see Nate Guenin beating out Zach Redmond for the top defensive position on the right side.  The general consensus from those following the team is that Zach Redmond has consistently outplayed Nate Guenin throughout camp and preseason, but these lines may indicate that he still has an edge on the former Winnipeg prospect when it comes to opening night.

Also, good to see that Duncan Siemens gets another crack at a preseason game, even if it's on the 3rd pairing.  It would be nice to see Siemens on the second pairing with Redmond, but it seems like Patrick Roy is committed to giving Ryan Wilson a lot of preseason ice time to try and play through some of the issues in his game this year.  If it improves his game then that's certainly worth the sacrifice in minutes for a few of the teams' prospects.

Like Wilson, Reto Berra gets another game to work through some of his on ice struggles before these things start to matter. Berra had a very tough start to the preseason, but has improved over the last few games, he'll look to build on that progress tonight against his former team.

No word out of Calgary on which players they'll be using tonight, but my guess is they'll be icing a more veteran group on home ice.  That said, even after 5 cuts yesterday the Flames still have a pretty large roster, and there's plenty of evaluation left to do for the Flames.  We'll update this article when the Flames lineup becomes available.

UPDATE: As predicted the Flames are playing a more seasoned group of players in tonights preseason contest.  According to their radio play-by-play man Derek Wills:

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Flames?src=hash">#Flames</a> will ice their strongest line-up to this point of pre-season vs. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Avalanche?src=hash">#Avalanche</a> tonight. Forward lines and defence pairings to follow.</p>&mdash; Derek Wills (@Fan960Wills) <a href="https://twitter.com/Fan960Wills/status/516989855755436032">September 30, 2014</a></blockquote>

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Here's the players on their roster tonight. No lines or defensive pairings as of yet.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Here is the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Flames?src=hash">#Flames</a> lineup vs. the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Avs?src=hash">#Avs</a>! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CGYvsCOL?src=hash">#CGYvsCOL</a> <a href="http://t.co/DIIp1ZAXgD">pic.twitter.com/DIIp1ZAXgD</a></p>&mdash; Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) <a href="https://twitter.com/NHLFlames/status/516992717935480832">September 30, 2014</a></blockquote>

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The Avalanche are still winless in preseason, but folks it's really important to keep that in the proper context.  A few examples of that context are below:

So yeah... Don't take this stuff too seriously folks.