Avalanche fans did an awful lot of program checking Tuesday.
“Who’s this guy?”
“Who’s that guy?”
Those questions were overheard more than once in the crowded stands of the Family Sports Center on the first day of Avalanche training camp.
With the padlocks finally off the doors of NHL buildings, the 2005-06 edition of the Avs took the ice. They hadn’t skated together as Avalanche teammates since Colorado’s last game – May 4, 2004, against the San Jose Sharks in the playoffs.
Only four players – Joe Sakic, Alex Tanguay, Dan Hinote and Milan Hejduk – have been with the franchise since the previous millennium. Sakic, who entered the NHL in fall 1988, shared the ice with rookie center Chris Durand, who was about 20 months old then.
Sakic, who played with Peter Stastny in Quebec and may yet play with his son, Avalanche prospect Paul Stastny, said Avs fans will get to know and appreciate the new team before long. Roughly 200 fans turned out for the open practice, about the same as in years past.
“Obviously, it’s going to be different, especially for someone like me,” Sakic said. “But we have a good group of guys here. We’re just going to try to do well, play exciting hockey and try to win a Stanley Cup. But we like what we have here.
“I think we’re going to be a very competitive, very exciting team.”
Tanguay, entering his sixth NHL season and still only 25, liked what he saw of the new Avs after Day One. Tanguay played on a line with Sakic and newcomer Andrew Brunette during scrimmages and figures to play with other potential linemates in coming days.
“There’s a lot of new players, but they brought a lot of skills and a lot of leadership with them,” said Tanguay, who had offseason hip surgery and said he won’t be 100 percent for a while. “Obviously, losing Peter (Forsberg) and Adam (Foote) is going to affect your team, and some of the other guys are going to have to step up. But the management made the decisions for the better of the team, and hopefully we can be a better team. I like our team speed, from what I saw today.”
New Avs coach Joel Quenne- ville did not use Sakic, Tanguay and Hejduk on a line together. The trio was the highest-scoring line in the NHL in 2000-01 with 274 points. Hejduk skated mostly on a line with Pierre Turgeon and Steve Konowalchuk.
Quenneville said he likes to do a lot of mixing and matching on lines throughout a season – and within games.
“We’ll try a lot of different combinations before the end of camp,” Quenneville said. “I love the depth of our lines, and the fact we’ve got a lot of guys who can play all three positions. I liked a lot of what I saw out there today. It was great for everyone to be back on the ice.”
Quenneville, who singled out 2004 Avs first-round pick Wojtek Wolski for the quality of his first-day play, noted other changes besides personnel. Namely, the differences brought on by new league rules.
Quenneville said the increased space from the top of the faceoff circles to the blue lines will alter the game more than he had thought.
“We’re going to see more 2-on-1s than we’ve seen in our game for a while,” Quenneville said.
Tanguay said he and Hejduk are ready to reward management’s decision to keep them over players such as Forsberg and Foote, and thinks the new rules could help him crack the 100-point barrier for the first time in his career.
“A lot of the rules, at first I felt bad for the defensemen,” Tanguay said. “But then I was like, ‘Oh, well, too bad.”‘
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
