Andrighetto a revelation for balanced Avalanche offense

The Colorado Avalanche held an optional morning skate on Thursday ahead of their game against the Carolina Hurricanes. One of the players who decided to get some game day reps in was forward Sven Andrighetto. With a balanced scoring attack, Andrighetto is Colorado’s leader in goals nearly a month into the season. With four goals and eight points to his name in 11 games, Andrighetto is happy with his start this season, but not completely satisfied.

“It’s four goals, a few other guys have three goals,” Andrighetto said almost dismissively. “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter who scores the goals. I’m just trying to bring the offense to this team, and help the team win hockey games like everyone else is.”

Andrighetto was brought over from Montreal in a deadline deal near the end of last season in exchange for Andreas Martinsen. After spending time with the Canadiens’ AHL affiliate and playing in a limited role when in Montreal’s line up, Andrighetto has found a comfortable home in Colorado’s top six dating back to last season. The Swiss forward had 16 points (5 G, 11 A) in 19 appearances with the Avalanche at the end of last season, giving him 24 points in 30 games in a Colorado sweater.

“I feel very comfortable here with the whole group that we have, the whole team,” Andrighetto said. “It’s fun to be here. We’re very young, fast and we’re working hard. But at the same time, we’re having fun, and we want to keep winning some hockey games.”

After four days off, Andrighetto is looking to build on his two point night in the Avs’ 6-3 thumping of Central Division rival Chicago Blackhawks. The big night for his team came 24 hours after taking a beating of their own in Vegas against the expansion Golden Knights.

“It says a lot [about the team’s character],” Andrighetto stated. “I think any team who can bounce back after a big loss like that, the next day against a good team like Chicago says a lot about the character that we have on this team, and the mind set that we have. I mean it’s good to see and we expect that.”

After sweeping the season series last year, the Avs will face the Hurricanes for the first time this year. Head coach Jared Bednar said there will be no lineup changes from Saturday. Defensemen Nikita Zadorov and Chris Bigras will be the team’s healthy scratches for the game.

Projected line up:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen

Andrighetto-Duchene-Grimaldi

Comeau-Soderberg-Nieto

Greer-Kerfoot-Yakupov

Johnson-Lindholm

Nemeth-Barrie

Barberio-Mironov

Varlamov

Bernier