DENVER, Colo. – With only two games remaining in the Colorado Avalanche’s preseason schedule, both on the road, the team has not yet picked up a win. And that doesn’t matter either. What’s important, though, is that games like tonight certainly make decisions a lot less complicated for management.

I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow of six goals by the Vegas Golden Knights and instead examine what a result like tonight means for the guys trying to make the opening night roster.

Tonight’s game can easily be described as the land of missed opportunities. Not from the team’s superstars, who got game reps for the first time this preseason, but from the 10 players whose training camp ended and won’t be on the roster when the puck drops on Oct. 9 in Las Vegas.

We’ve talked at length about the importance of management making decisions, and that applies to both sides of the coin. Tonight was a lackluster and uninspired performance over 60 minutes of hockey at a point in camp where time to impress is running out.

The NHL is an elite fraternity made up of more than 736 players from around the world who get to play in front of the best sports fans and in the largest sports league in the world. So to be a part of it, you have to better prove your level of jam and jump.

Let’s start with the blue line… the position with the most questions this preseason. Calvin de Haan and Cale Makar were as expected. For de Haan, he was the best defensive player tonight. His standards led the team and he was able to provide some versatility by adapting to several different partners. He showed leadership qualities and also demonstrated a quick grasp of the Avalanche style of defensive play. He will be a very good addition to this team’s already solid defensive core.

As for the rest, Erik Brannstrom, one of the Avalanche’s summer UFA signings, had his toughest preseason outing yet, but the NHL player will certainly have the memory of a goldfish tonight after several other solid preseason performances . But as tonight’s cuts show, Sean Behrens, Calle Rosen and Jack Ahcan haven’t fared particularly well with the big club, but will now head north to join the Eagles in camp, where they’ll most certainly be in the AHL will flourish.

Up front it was a mixed bag for the boys as they tried to secure a place. To be fair, this game, much like the others so far, lacked flow. Six minors in the first game and three in the second hindered players trying to find a rhythm. Luckily, the officials put the whistles away in the third period. But the punishments imposed really had no rhyme or reason and it became difficult to understand where the line was, what was a punishment and what was not.

This led to the victims of Jason Polin, Jean-Luc Foudy, Matthew Stienburg, Matthew Phillips and Jere Innala, among other factors. These are players who will have a chance up north and are certainly ones to keep an eye on in the coming years.

Between the pipes…Trent Miner is on his way to the Eagles. For Alexandar Georgiev, this was a chance to get back into the rhythm of the NHL game pace. At 37 shots it wasn’t his best performance and there were certainly some unavoidable bounces and mishaps, but at the end of the day it was an opportunity to hit a full 60.

On to the next one. The Avalanche will most likely trim their roster even further the next day before a final two-game road trip to Vegas and then Utah. Coach Bednar indicated that the roster for these games will be very close to what was expected on opening night in Las Vegas. Colorado will also travel directly from Vegas to Utah.

The coming days will be very revealing and will certainly clarify the picture of what the Avalanche will look like when the puck drops on the 2024-2025 season.