Conor Timmins makes the team!

After a full season on the sidelines, and with zero professional (regular season or playoff) hockey games under his belt, Colorado’s 21-year-old second-round pick from 2017, Conor Timmins, has made the 23-man Avalanche roster out of training camp! What a story.

The final cuts for the team came today, with Kevin Connauton and Jayson Megna passing through waivers as of noon eastern, and waivers exempt Calle Rosen also heading back to the AHL. Per NHL rules, the Avalanche can call up Connauton or Megna for 10 games or 30 days at a time without requiring them to need waivers again. In order to reset that clock, they will need to play in a game while up. Rosen can move up and down between the AHL and NHL team as often as the team likes.

With the cuts to Rosen and Connauton, the Avalanche now have seven healthy defensemen on their roster. Eight if you include Ian Cole, who is on the Injured Reserve for the medium-term future, but skated in an orange no-contact jersey today. Cale Makar is listed as healthy but missed practice this morning for an undisclosed reason, he should be healthy for opening night, according to Coach Bednar via Ryan S. Clarke.

With the addition of Timmins, the Avalanche have a great combination of size, speed, and skill. The top-four without Cole seem pretty clear: Makar, Samuel Girard, Erik Johnson, Nikita Zadorov. After them, it’s Timmins, with Ryan Graves and Mark Barberio fighting for the sixth and final spot. With Cole comes back, it’ll likely be he or Zadorov who skate on the third pair, creating three very solid duos.

Roughly this is your 2019-20 Colorado Avalanche:

Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen (satisfied sigh)
Tyson Jost - Nazem Kadri - Andre Burakovsky
Matt Nieto - J.T. Compher - Joonas Donskoi
Matt Calvert - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Valeri Nichushkin
Colin Wilson - Vladislav Kamenev

Samuel Girard - Erik Johnson
Nikita Zadorov - Cale Makar
Mark Barberio - Conor TImmins
Ryan Graves
Ian Cole (inj)

Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz

Obviously, the team is going to change as the season goes on as injuries occur, players play themselves on or off the team, and are traded. But for now, this is the seven the team has, and Conor Timmins is among them.

What do you think the pre- and post-Cole lineups are going to look like? Here are a few guesses:

Here is Tom’s guess until Cole arrives.

Mine is a little different and carries minor hope that the team somehow moves on from Zadorov after Cole returns.

Samuel Girard - Cale Makar
Ian Cole - Erik Johnson
Mark Barberio - Conor Timmins

If I really had it my way, I’d have Calle Rosen on the third pair with Timmins.

What do you think of these pairs? Let us know in the comments and on Twitter!