Avalanche Cut Down to 27

On Monday, the Avalanche cut two more of their younger prospects, Ryan Stoa and Ryan Wilson, leaving their active roster sitting at 27 players, including their 2nd round pick this past summer, Ryan O'Reilly, who signed a 3-year, entry-level deal today. The Avalanche now have only four players to cut to come down to the 23-man roster needed for the start of the season on October 1st.

Forwards	Defense	Goaltenders
Milan Hejduk	John-Michael Liles	Peter Budaj
Wojtek Wolski	Kyle Quincey	Craig Anderson
Paul Stastny	Ruslan Salei	Tyler Weiman
Marek Svatos	Brett Clark
T.J. Hensick	Scott Hannan
Cody McLeod	Tom Preissing
Chris Stewart	Adam Foote
Darcy Tucker	Derek Peltier
David Jones	Kyle Cumiskey
T.J. Galiardi
David Koci
Matt Hendricks
Chris Durno
Matt Duchene
Ryan O'Reilly

The Avalanche are certainly not without their young players on their near-final roster, only having to cut four players from the list in total. It will likely be one forward, two defenders and a goaltender cut from the team listed above.

Adam Foote will captain this young team this season, while Paul Stastny (pictured) and Milan Hejduk will have the task of leading the team in scoring. The addition of Matt Duchene should give the team a new look down the middle on the second line. Kyle Quincey is going to be the player to watch on the blueline, as he was brought in to bring some much needed offense to the Avs blueline. Finally, I would expect Craig Anderson to start between the pipes for the Avalanche for their season-opener on October 1st, home versus the Sharks.

Even though this team has 27 players on it's active training camp roster, the salary cap ceiling has nothing on it. Now, I only have cap numbers for 26 players, as O'Reilly's new cap number has not been disclosed as of yet, but it shouldn't be too much as a second rounder. With the 26 that I do have, their overall cap number is only $52.5 million, leaving $4.3 million to spare, which O'Reilly won't come close to. When the cuts come for the last few players, the Avalanche will sleep tight knowing that they didn't have any problems with cap space.

Between the defense and the goalies, you can cut off the last players from the list, making that decision pretty easy. I do wonder who won't make it out of the forwards, as there could be reason for any of the last five or six players on the list. Duchene seems to be a lock on the list, so you should have a reasonable prediction for points for him heading into your fantasy draft, but it's a crap shoot for the rest. Good luck.

The rest of the cuts should be made available when they happen.