Tyson Barrie will miss another game Friday night against the St. Louis Blues. That will be the third straight, with a somewhat mysterious lower-body injury. We’re told at BSN Denver that Barrie may go on the next four-game road trip following Friday’s game. So, while it doesn’t seem like this is a serious, long-term injury, the Avalanche decided to shuffle the deck a bit on Thursday to add more help on defense.
Mark Alt is your newest Avs callup, after spending all of this season previously with the Colorado Eagles of the AHL. Forward Sheldon Dries was sent down to the Eagles to make room for Alt, the 6-4, 201, defender who played seven games with the Avs last season.
In 19 games for the Eagles, Alt had four assists and a minus-8.
Whether he plays against the Blues, we’ll find out after the morning skate Friday. I don’t think the Avs were all that thrilled with the play of their Nos. 5 and 6 D-men – Patrik Nemeth and Mark Barberio – against the Penguins, so this move might have something to do with that.
I’ll try to dig up a lot more information on Barrie at the skate tomorrow. Been out of the loop a bit the last couple days with some family sick-bay stuff, but things are looking up.
I thought Alt should have played in the playoffs last year, instead of either Duncan Siemens or David Warsofsky. I thought he added some good stuff to the Avs in their regular-season finale win over St. Louis, but Jared Bednar elected to go with Siemens and Warsofsky over him against the Predators.
The Avs did not practice Thursday.
0 Comments (3 conversations)
robfields911
Hope the family is well and can’t say enough about how great you and your colleagues are! Cheers.
Adrian Dater
AuthorThank you, all seems OK. Bit of a scare involving my wife, but things looking up.
Sarasota Curt
I’m sure we would all rather see Timmins or even Graves instead of Alt and his -8. How is Timmins doing anyway?
Adrian Dater
AuthorStill a cone of silence on Timmins.
Frank0779
Alt is a career AHLer. I don’t understand why they don’t callup Nick Meloche instead. It’s a non-sense. He’s young, big (6-3, 205), good skater, good right-hand shot. He certainly deserves a look more than f*&?%@$ Mark Alt.
SRbell8
Even if Alt does play it will be very limited minutes, Why bring Meloche up to play 8 minutes in one game. Theres no one in the top 4 that is going to drop out to allow him to get any significant time. Might as well let him continue his play on the eagles.
Rufus_Leaky
Playing Meloche 8 minutes would be exactly what he needs for his development. He’s not Makar. You don’t want to throw him into top 4 minutes and matchups in his first call up. If he never gets the 8 minute taste, he’ll never develop into an NHL player no matter how many ahl minutes he gets.