After four preseason games, Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar continues to tweak his roster to be ready for opening night.
As it's still preseason, nothing is set in stone — not even who will be playing on the top line for the Colorado Avalanche.
Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen played in their first preseason game Sunday night at Ball Arena with Jonathan Drouin on their line. The trio has been practicing together through training camp but it was the first glimpse of actual game time action.
"I like that line a lot. They created some really good scoring chances, made some nice plays," head coach Jared Bednar said after the 4-3 overtime win against the Dallas Stars on Sunday. "I love the quickness of Drouin tonight. He showed up in a few different spots using his speed and made some great plays both 5-on-5 and on the power play. He checked hard — I'm really liking his effort and what he's bringing right now."
Drouin was part of the power-play unit that scored the second goal of the game and assisted on the overtime winner from Oskar Olausson.
"It was fun. I thought we had some good looks," Drouin said about playing with MacKinnon. "We didn't capitalize on a lot of them but I think it's good that we have looks at least, we're getting chances."
He said playing with elite players like MacKinnon and Rantanen, there's no hesitation. If one of them is open, he has to get the puck to them as much as he can.
"It's good, first game together, didn't get the puck a lot," Rantanen said after the game. "But it's first preseason game so we got to keep working on it and try to be better when the season starts up."
The top six are pretty much set, but it's the spots that Bednar needs to fill that are posing a challenge.
"The guys that are fighting for spots, we're trying to keep playing them and keep playing them, keep playing them so it gives us more education on what they can do over a regular week, two weeks, three weeks — going what it would look like regular season," Bednar said. "And we're seeing a bunch of good things. We're starting to figure out what guys' strengths are, where some of their weaknesses are. We'll have to make some tough decisions down the road."
Bednar said Alexandar Georgiev, who stopped 34 shots, played really well at times but he didn't like some of the goals he let in. But that's what exhibition games are for — to knock the rust off and get the players ready to start the season.
The full starting lineup will most likely play the last preseason game in Las Vegas, Bednar said. But it depends on what decisions have been made by that game on Thursday.