Bleak in Denver

The forecast in Denver is not looking very positive to start the 2010 season, as they have lost a fair bit of firepower up front. They have lost Joe Sakic to retirement (I wish I was around to post something for that) and traded Ryan Smyth away to Los Angeles (another post missed). These are two quality veterans that may have still had some lessons to teach some of the youth on the team, but that isn't to be. The team now has to make do with some of the new faces they have picked up this summer. Standout defender, Kyle Quincey, came to Denver in the Smyth deal and potential starting goalie, Craig Anderson, came over from Florida as a free agent, but it all seems a short of the overall goal of really improving the team.

The Avs have signed their third overall pick this summer, Matt Duchene, to his initial entry-level deal, but if he makes the team out of camp, it'll be a real trial by fire.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Milan Hejduk	John-Michael Liles	Peter Budaj
Wojtek Wolski	Kyle Quincey	Craig Anderson
Paul Statsny	Ruslan Salei
Marek Svatos	Brett Clark
T.J. Hensick	Scott Hannan
Cody McLeod	Tom Preissing
Chris Stewart	Adam Foote
Darcy Tucker
David Jones
Brian Willsie

The Avalanche with all of their struggles this summer, have a reasonable budget to work with to fill their remaining gaps. They currently have 19 players (see above) ready to make the team out of camp at a salary cap hit of $46.2 million. That'll leave a good cap number remaining to help fit in Duchene and his bonus-laden deal, not to mention possibly going out and picking up a bit more talent for their forward ranks.

The Avalanche have no key free agents left to sign this summer.