Andreas Martinsen signs with Avalanche

Better late than never, eh?

Our beloved Avalanche have signed Norwegian RW Andreas Martinsen, late of the DEL and Norway's World Championship squad. The 6'3 230# Martinsen played for Dusseldorfer for the past 3 seasons and put up 41 points in 50 games this year. The contract is a single-year ELC, 2-way of course, and my wild guess is that he will start his North American Pro career with the San Antonio Rampage.

This is another deal that shows the desire of the Avs to fill the gaps between the Avs young core and the recent draftees by the Sakic/Roy administration. A solid foundation makes for a strong house if you will. Martinsen joins Big Sam Henley and Alexis Pepin as BIG forwards that have been missing from the Colorado development strategy for many years basically forever.

There's a few YouTube vids of some scraps he's had and opinions from some that have been able to see Andreas over the past few years, personally I'm going to wait for what he does from this point forward to judge his merits. Dennis Everberg and Borna Rendulic had plenty of opinions of them out there last summer and they became more or less irrelevant once they slipped on the burgundy and white. With players like this it's more about translating skills and the ability and motivation to learn rather than what they've produced in other leagues.

So, let's give a laurel & hearty MHH handshake to Big Andy. Welcome.