Dater’s Daily: Does Anton Blidh Have Job Sewn Up With Colorado Avalanche?; NHL News And Notes

A good Thursday to all. Go Broncos, beat the Colts. Or, as I always called them in the heated days of the rivalry between the Colts and Patriots, the “Dolts.” True fact: I covered the 2003 AFC Championship game in Foxboro between the Patriots and Colts at the old newspaper I once worked for. I tried not to cheer in the press box after the Pats wiped the field with the Dolts. … But this is a hockey site, devoted to covering the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, so let’s do some links, notes and other flotsam and jetsam:

• As I said last night, it sure sounds like Anton Blidh has made the Colorado Avalanche opening-night roster. (His last name, by the way, is pronounced: “Bleed.”)
• He’s the new Nicolas Aube-Kubel, it sounds like. Jared Bednar seems to like that he “knows his identity”, i.e. a banger on the forecheck and good defensively. Blidh is probably helped, too, by the fact he has 70 games of NHL experience, all with Boston.
• It still seems like Martin Kaut, one of the competitors for a forward job, is having trouble finding that identity, at least at the NHL level. He’s trying to have the mentality of a fourth-line grinder, but the fact is he’s a former first-round pick who was always a goal-scorer. That’s a tough transition to make.
• Bednar said Sunday is the final cut-down day for the team. We may get the final cuts sooner than that.
• Looking around the league…do you realize that there actually is an NHL regular-season game tomorrow? It’s in Prague, at noon mountain time, between the Sharks and Predators, in a Global Series game.
• I’m excited to welcome Pat Salvas to the CHN team. He’ll be doing columns of every stripe moving forward, with an emphasis on kind of a “voice of the fan” type of thing. He’s a good, funny writer. He lives in New Hampshire, but watches every game and is a massive Avs fan. He flew out from N.H. to Denver for the Cup parade and penned this piece.
• Major news out of Canada: Tim Horton’s dropped its sponsorship of men’s hockey, over ongoing sexual abuse scandals (CBC)
• Bad news in Washington about one of the Capitals’ best players (Washington Hockey Now)
• Michael Del Zotto continues his tour of just about every NHL team (Florida Hockey Now)
• Bob Duff with five observations on the Red Wings as their season approaches (Detroit Hockey Now)
• Montreal’s top five defensive prospects (Montreal Hockey Now)
• How the Jason Robertson deal got done in Dallas (Dallas Hockey Now)
• The perspective from Big D on last night’s loss to the Avalanche (Dallas Hockey Now)
• The Flames haven’t looked too good so far in the preseason (Calgary Hockey Now)