Now:

• Stastny   (center) DOB: 12/27/1985 Age: 23
• Duchene  (center) DOB: 01/16/1991 Age: 18
• O'Reilly    (center) DOB: 01/07/1991 Age: 18
• Galiardi    (center) DOB: 04/22/1988 Age: 21

Then (1996):

• Sakic      (center) DOB: 07/07/1969 Age: 27
• Forsberg (center) DOB: 07/20/1973 Age: 23
• Yelle       (center) DOB: 04/09/1974 Age: 22
• Ricci       (center) DOB: 10/27/1971 Age: 24

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They have run the first Avalanche All Access program on Altitude for the season.  I smell some changes in the ...tone?

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Today was a good day at the rink for the rookie crew with the notible exception of an injury to Cann.

Dan Laperriere, assistant coach to Quinn at Lake Erie ran the practice today.  Quinn stood around not saying much to anyone and Deader was on the ice to bang his stick for laps and good shots on goal.  Laperriere continued to run a no nonsense camp but things seemed to have relaxed considerably since Wednesday. 

First, during 3 v 1 drills Duchene let loose a hard wrist shot that caught Cann right under his chin.  He doesn't wear that Patrick Roy plastic deal under his mask.  The puck missed his mask, missed his chest guard and seemed to have nailed him in the throat.  He was down for quite a bit and was helped to the dressing room.  He could have anything from a serious bruise to a broken collar bone.  He never came back.  I hope he's healthy but if not, that opens the door for Billy Sauer to make the Lake Erie team.

Like Justin is a goalie nut, I'm a bit of a defenseman fan.  Today was a big day for the D because we finally got to see them do some 1 v1 drills as well as 5v5 & 4v4 full contact scrimmages.  They weren't exactly laying the wood to guys but they were able to take the body and move forwards around.  Anyway, the forwards vs defenseman 1v1 drills consisted the of the defense starting at a stand stil at the faceoff circle with the forward at the goal line.  At the whistle the forward raced down the ice while the defenseman had to use basically a power crossover to gain speed as fast as possible.  They had to do that back to their own blue line and then the forward could start to make his moves in the zone to try and score.  This drill really exposed some of the rookie defensemen.  Guys like Chouinard, Finn, O'niel and even reportedly great skaters like Montgomery looked pretty poor in the drill.  The standout in drills and scrimmage was Ryan Wilson.  Wilson is a very good skater and his stride isn't rushed or forced.  He's got a real active poke check.  Macias is another guy who's transition skating looked really uncomfortable for him.  He gives up a lot or room to the opposing forward.  Gaunce isn't fancy but he's really rock solid in his positioning.  He's physical in front of his goaltender.  Peltier, Elliot and to a lesser extent Barrie did OK.

With an actual scrimmage to run, instead of shinny with the vets you actually got to see a little pro style hockey.  Immediately you could see the guys who are comfortable in a physical game.  Gaunce and Wilson on defense for sure.  Dupuis thrived in the scrimmages, just played his game and didn't let the contact effect what he wanted to do.  He made several dandy plays and has a real accurate heads up shot.  Yip finally got to showcase a little of what he's all about by laying the body to guys and creating turnovers.  Mercier slipped through the rough stuff and seemed to thrive in that environment as well.  Galiardi continues to display his NHL readiness by doing what he wants without dancing around congestion or checks.  O'Rielly was strong but he's not a puck possession guy through the neutral zone, he's certainly more of a below the face-off dot possession forward from what I can tell so far.  Stoa was pretty making simple plays but pretty darned quiet.  Duchene was his usual ball of energy.  He's got good feet for the puck when he's got a bouncing puck or a pass in to his skates.  He's making passes guys aren't prepared for or can't handle.  I've a hunch if those passes are to Hejduk he's be making things happen.  All in all I'd say the biggest winner in the scimmage session today was Dupuis.  On defense I'd give the nod to Gaunce with Wilson right there.

Watched Wolski feeding some passes to Quincy after the rookies were done.  Wolski would feed a pass from the left side to Quincy on the right side for one timers.  Quincy has a NASTY one timer, very accurate.  I watched Wolski for a while and he's obsessed with stick handling.  He does drill after drill with weaving the puck in a pattern.  He seems eager to feed pucks to other guys on shots and almost reluctant to practice shooting himself.  I know I'm going way in to the Dr. Phil psyco-analysis here but Wolski seems like a guy that is ill suited for the wing.  He's not an enthusiastic shot maker.  He's looking to pass first and shoot second.  I think that mentality has to change a bit if he's going to make this jump that everyone is waiting for.

Anderson was on the ice making a more enthusiastic effort on saves against Stewart and Bates.  He looks a lot bigger in net than Budaj, Raycroft or Theo.  He looks really solid and comfortable against the posts.  You know how Budaj would look like he's performing some painful Pilates move when he was trying to seal every possible hole on the post?  Anderson just overlaps his leg pad on the post and gets ready to push over.  He just looks big and comfortable in there.  He's not overly social though.  Stewart was laughing it up and doing tip drills with Bates and just fooling around but Anderson didn't seem interested in participating in any frivolity.  He's a serious cat on the ice.  Not that it's a bad thing, I tend to remember another goal tender who played for the Avs who was serious as a heart attack about practice.

Today's rookie camp brought to you by the number 9.... I'm very clever and original.

I went on a twitter-fest at camp which is fun and frustrating all at once.  You can't watch as much when you type on the iphone.  Maybe that applies to the blackberry too, I wouldn't know.  Before I go over what I saw, I just want to say that camp at this point can't tell you what kind of player a guys is going to be in a real NHL game.  You can't simulate the physical nature of the NHL playing shinny or doing drills.  You can however, evaluate skating, puck handling, vision and shot making potential etc...

The next thing is that the culture of this camp was completely different than previous years.  Sacco ran the rookie camp instead of Quinn.  Generally the AHL coach runs the rookie camps.  Sacco was all business, as was Deadmarsh.  There was no joking around or even a cracked smile.  It was a quiet bunch of rookies this year because that's the tone Sacco has set.  Basically Sacco would yell out a drill and then they ran it.  It would be followed by laps and Deadmarsh would bang his stick on the boards to drive them to go faster.  No one on one breakouts to work on this or that.  It was as serious as a heart attack out there.  The next huge change was that the pros scrimmaged against the rookies after camp.  I've never, ever seen the Avalanche do this.  It was really great to see because you would hope it would relieve some tensions and help the rookies better showcase their skills when training camp and preseason start.  Sadly, this is also the first volunteer pro scrimmage session that wasn't run by Sakic.  Because there were so many players they took both rinks.  Foote ran the West rink and it looked like Stastny might have been running the East rink.  Though maybe Tucker was running it via looking annoyed.

Duchene isn't just a fast skater, because guys like Tessier and McNicoll are also fast.  The thing with MD's skating is that he's got really quick feet.  Some guys like Svatos get their feet moving fast but they aren't getting anywhere particularly quickly.  Duchene is for lack of a better term, quick.  He's quick on his first step and he's fast as hell at top speed.  The nice part is he doesn't slow down when the puck gets on his stick.  That's what makes him so special as a skater.  Some guys can do one or two of those things but not all of them.  During some of the scrimmages that happened after rookie practice you could see Duchene is also strong on his skates.  You know how you can tell when a player is going to take on the whole team by himself come hell or high water?  You've seen that body language in guys like Jones, Arnason or Svatos in the past.  They hunch their shoulders, bury their head and start making moves towards the net.  Well, Duchene gets this look all the time when he's got the puck on his stick.  But, unlike a lot of guys that do this he's shifting gears in the scoring zone and looking to make a pass.  As many times as you watch him do it, it kind of takes me off guard.  I hate to make the comparison because it's not fair, but he gets that Forsberg look.  It's kind of like he's when Foppa would look like he's going to bull rush the zone.  Everyone gravitates towards him or watches him and then he just feeds to the open guy.  It's the subtlties of Duchene's playmaking with his skating that's going to make him a special pro.  He's got a hard shot and all that but he's a hard player to read.

Mercier was impressive today.  He skates with determination and energy.  It looks like he's competing on every drill and every shift on the scrimmages.  He displayed some really impressive shot making.  We'll see how well that translates during full contact.

Stoa is the real deal.  I think he's going to make the team for certain.  He's in the right spots and has a complete skill set for a big guy.

O'Rielly doesn't stand out in drills.  He's not going to be in any skills competitions but he shines in the scrimmages.  He's strong on the puck and takes it to the scoring areas.  He's not dancing around the outside.  Sometimes, like McLeod guys are just hockey players. O'Rielly might start in Lake Erie but you can imagin a monster 3rd / 4th line in the future with him, Mercier, and maybe a guy like Yip down the road.

Didn't catch much of Yip until the scrimmages.  You can tell he wants to lay the wood to some guys but games of shinny just don't allow it.  He had a couple of nice goals.  Has a real heavy wrist shot.

I can't judge defensemen well during these things.  The defensemen that could skate looked good.  A kid like Gaunce, you can't really tell anything about yet because they aren't allowed to hit or pinch guys on the boards really.  One name I do want to mention is the kid we picked up from Calgary last March named Ryan Wilson.  He's got a really good stick and skated really well in shinny.  He just stuck out.

I thought Sauer looked solid, perhaps the best of all the prospect goaltenders playing today.

Galiardi looked confident and even cracked some smiles when he lost an edge.  That's saying something for such a serious camp.  On one particular drill he was rushing up the ice and he took a bad pass behind him, did a spin-o-rama and made a good feed to the open man.  Here's a little fact for the ladies (and Dater :)).  Galiardi looks like he's kind of "thin" because he's not wearing an undershirt like every hockey player in the world.  So his jersey sticks to him.  I don't think he wears any of those abs protectors with his shoulder pads either.  How do I know this?  From last year's final game where the players have to give the jerseys off their backs to the fans.  He was the only dude not wearing a shirt under his gear.  He took some ribbing from his teammates that night.  I'm guessing his nickname is stink.  Anyway, I've noticed a lot of people comment that he needs to put on some weight.  I think his unique method of air conditioning is contributing to that belief.  Too much info?

That's all I can recall off the top of my head.  If anyone has questions about a particular player I'll try to answer.

As fans we've never really gone in to a season expecting anything less than a playoff contending Avalanche team.  After last year, that's all going to change going in to the 2009-10 season.  And believe me, going in to training camp season everyone and their grandmother is going to depress you.  It's NHL prediction season!  But, from an unlikely source I've gained perspective...thank you Down Goes Brown.

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Altitude is now running their season preview edition of "The Avalanche Experience" that spends 25 minutes selling you tickets and 5 minutes talking hockey and rerunning TSN's Duchene piece.  But one thing you can't find on the internet is that the Avalanche will debut a "new" mascot for the second game of the season versus Vancouver on October 3rd.

So far the Avalanche have implemented three items I mention in my rant from three months ago which is totally coincidental.  Now, if only they had followed my recommendation of posting their Altitude specials on a video site I could share with you all the evidence that there will in fact be a new mascot announced on Oct. 3rd.  You could also see an interview with the new coach Sacco and revel in the glow of Kyle Keefe.

It's the absolute DOG days of hockey right now.  With Yip signed the only thing to look forward to is a Billy Sauer signing (excited yet?).  So, I was looking at some hockey things on Craigslist and it entertained me for a suprisingly long time.  Here are a couple of gems.

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Unlike most things I post this one it going to be short.  Now, in retrospect we know the Avalanche were going to cut costs...so why didn't they buy out Tucker?

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[Special thanks to Dario, on location at the Avalanche rookie development camp.  Read below for his impressions of some of the top team prospects. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/DarioinDenver- Joe]

(Oops, I wrote this but never posted it.  I'm talented.)

I did a lot of tweeting while talking to Tapeleg at the rookie development camp yesterday but I thought I'd summarize my general opinions from day one.

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