When the Avalanche came off the ice after Tuesday’s practice at Family Sports Center, the team had two of the top six scorers among NHL rookies in the young 2006-07 season.
Colorado center Paul Stastny was tied for second at 10 points with San Jose defenseman Matt Carle – which is interesting, considering they were University of Denver teammates through last season.
Avs winger Wojtek Wolski was tied for fifth with Anaheim’s Dustin Penner, at eight points.
Los Angeles center Anze Kopitar is the top-scoring rookie, with 13 points.
Under normal circumstances, that might seem to signal that the Avs – who open a quick two-game trip tonight at Columbus against the Blue Jackets – have two major threats for the NHL’s rookie-of-the-year award, the Calder Trophy. Also, if the 20-year-old sons of European émigrés to Canada remain linemates all season, their statistical fates will be intertwined.
Yet Evgeni Malkin fouls up the normal circumstances.
The Pittsburgh center has burst on the NHL scene after recovering from a shoulder injury and is a lock for the Calder if he stays healthy. The young Russian already has five goals in his first five games.
But if he suffers a significant injury and misses enough games, that would open up the race. There also is an outside possibility that the Russian league’s legal protests over Malkin’s departure could cause problems.
“I see him on highlights a lot, so he’s obviously doing the right things,” Wolski said.
The NHL includes separate categories for rookies in the official statistics released daily, so it would be easy to follow the scoring race.
“I try not to worry about stuff like that,” Stastny said. “I just keep up with some of my old teammates, like Carle. Other than that, though, I’m not worrying about it.”
Said Wolski: “I’m just trying to play and play as much as I can. I hope we’re winning, and if we are it all will work out well.”
Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said of the rookie scoring race: “You notice those things, and you’re aware of the new guys coming into the league. Kopitar’s had a nice start in L.A. Paul’s really been a nice addition to our team. We knew a little about Wolie. The two of them have a little bit of chemistry going on, from the outset of training camp.”
The Avalanche rookies have many things in common, other than their care not to say anything that comes off as outlandish or cocky. Wojtek’s parents came to Canada from Poland when he was about 4 years old, and Stastny’s father, Peter, pulled off a famous escape from the Czechoslovakian national team during a tournament in Austria, heading to North America to join the Quebec Nordiques. Peter now represents his re-established nation, Slovakia, in the European parliament.
Now the sons are affluent before they are old enough to legally order a beer in a Colorado bar. Paul still is living at an apartment near DU with former Pioneer teammates Peter Mannino and Patrick Mullen, and Wolski still talks as if his spot on the roster is a day-to-day proposition.
These kids nowadays.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
