The Colorado Avalanche hosted their first preseason game against the Vegas Golden Knights. They lost, 4-1.
Vegas was putting out more veterans. Coach Gerard Gallant stated he wanted his veterans to start getting ready for opening night. Meanwhile, the Avalanche made it clear it was all prospects, all the time.
Well, it wasn’t all prospects — there were five veterans on the ice who were very clearly NHL players among prospects:
Johnson, MacKinnon and Rantanen were wearing the A for alternate. (I won’t go into how Erik Johnson has to be named an alternate captain… yet.