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Colorado Avalanche re-set taxi squad ahead of AHL opener

The Avalanche have called up a bunch of veterans to serve on the taxi squad as the Eagles get ready to start their season

By Tom Hunter
Colorado Avalanche v Vancouver Canucks Photo by Rich Lam/Getty Images

For the first month of the NHL season, the Colorado Avalanche have been consistently cycling players through the transaction wire between the NHL, the taxi squad and the AHL. The moves didn’t really matter. From an on-ice perspective, most were irrelevant, but the team made them in order to manipulate the salary cap, as well as occasionally have guys fill in at NHL practice. Now that the Eagles are set to begin their season this weekend, these sort of paper transactions will become far less frequent.

With that in mind, the Avalanche made a number of transactions today to set both the NHL and AHL lineups for the next few weeks. Veteran forward Jayson Megna has been called up and added to the NHL roster while fellow forwards Miika Salomaki, T.J. Tynan and defensemen Dennis Gilbert, Kyle Burroughs and Dan Renouf have been added to the taxi squad. They, along with goalie Adam Werner, will make up the group of reserves for the Avalanche going forward.

Along with these names, Greg Pateryn is believed to be back on the Avalanche roster after being sent down to the Eagles on Thursday. Unlike the other moves, Pateryn isn’t listed among the AHL transactions, but he is not listed on the official season opening roster for the Eagles either. The move to send him down and back up was likely a matter of salary cap manipulation.

Friday’s moves mean that top prospects Shane Bowers, Martin Kaut will be with the Eagles for the foreseeable future in order to get some game action.

A very young Colorado Eagles team begins its abbreviated AHL season this weekend with a trip to California to take on the San Diego Gulls. The team will spend the entire week in California, playing three games against the Gulls and two against the Ontario Reign.

We could see some player movement once the Eagles return home to Colorado for their game against the Tucson Road Runners on Feb. 24. For now though, everyone will remain where they are.

Prospects Trent Minor (G), Cal Burke (F), Jean-Luc Foudy (F), Sasha Mutala (F) and Luka Burzan (F) are all expected to make their professional debuts this week.

UPDATE: Greg Pateryn has been added to the Eagles roster.