Veteran defenseman Brad Stuart and partner Brandon Gormley will be scratched for the Avalanche in Thursday’s season opener at the Pepsi Center. That story and everything else we do — including our four-page, season-previous wrap that was published Thursday — is at denverpost.com/avalanche.
Here’s part of Patrick Roy’s morning press conference:
The three scratches (including F Mikhail Grigorenko) and backup goalie Reto Berra were the only guys on the ice at the morning skate. As we wrote skate in the morning on game days if they practice the previous day.
Avs captain Gabe Landeskog and everyone else (except the scratches) will continue to be made available in the morning. Here’s Landeskog:
On the side, Landeskog told me the morning skates are not optional. They do not want younger players feeling pressured to skate and they want to eliminate the energy-burning, fun-and-games that always takes place at the end.
Matt Duchene was a fan of the morning skates. But he’ll adapt:
