Rookie Tournament continues today

On Friday afternoon the Colorado Avalanche rookies won their first game of the tournament defeating the Arizona Coyotes rookies 3-2 in overtime. Most of the squad in attendance suited up minus Ondrej Pavel and Calum Ritchie who hasn’t been cleared for contact yet, though he did participate in the morning skate.

Arizona had a lineup loaded with top picks and it showed. Josh Doan scored two goals in the first period while the Avalanche received a tally from one of their invitees Milo Roelens. Though there were no official stats recorded Trent Miner made a lot of saves and kept the game close. Late in the third period Ivan Ivan tied the game on the power play on a rebounded shot from Maros Jedlicka and the game headed to overtime tied at deuces.

For the standard 3-on-3 overtime, the Coyotes got a lot of great chances but Miner was a brick wall. The Avalanche got a great look from Sam Malinski jumping into the play to win the game with a 3-2 victory. He assisted on the previous two goals as well for a very effective day for Malinski.

Today the tournament continues with the Avalanche facing the Anaheim Ducks rookies at 1 p.m. MT. A few lineup changes are expected as not every player will participate in each game and Ivan Zhigalov is the likely starter in net.

This game is expected to be streamed just as the previous one was via the team website as well as on the Ducks’ homepage. A link should go live 15 minutes before the game.

The tournament concludes on Monday as the Avalanche face the host team Vegas Golden Knights rookies at 3 p.m. MT and should be streamed on the team websites again as well.