Edited Oct. 9, 2023 at 10:34 a.m.
The Avs waived or demoted their presumed to be 7th and 8th defenseman (Hunt and Malinski) and one of their 13th forward options (Tufte) while releasing two others: Kiviranta/Holland from their PTO.
While this is likely due to trying to get some of those guys to clear waivers and maybe call them back up soon (Tufte/Hunt) it leaves us with 21 man roster, $1.3 to $3.3 million in available cap space (depends if Francouz goes LTIR or not), but we cannot accrue cap space (LTIR for Landeskog) so going with less than 22 active players doesn't really benefit us.
I wonder if they are setting themselves up to pickup someone from waivers as this would give them:
$1.3 million to simply add to the roster
$2.0 million in goalie cap space (Annunen would get sent down to AHL)
My favorite targets:
RD: Dylan Coghlan (Carolina) $850k - averages 1.5 shots per game, 1 block, 1 hit, and takes very few penalties in 3rd line roles with Vegas and Carolina (2 great systems to develop in).
Waiting game:
G: James Reimer ($1.5m) or Alex Lyon ($900k) in Detroit
G: Eric Comrie ($1.8m) or Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen ($840k) in Buffalo