Avalanche Recall AHL’s Top Goal Scorer

It’s Riley Tufte season again for the Colorado Avalanche.

For one night, at least.

When Tufte was a healthy scratch last night for the Colorado Eagles, I had a good feeling it was because he would be headed to Denver the next morning, and that’s exactly what has happened.

Tufte has been recalled by the Avalanche, and will almost certainly be playing Thursday against the Seattle Kraken. He currently leads the AHL in goals per-game and shots on net per-game.

The question is – who is he replacing?

Valeri Nichushkin missed practice yesterday due to the birth of his daughter, but we didn’t get any indication that he was going to miss a game because of it. It’s entirely possible he does, so that’s something to consider.

Jonathan Drouin was back on the top line last game, but didn’t do a whole lot outside of a few rush chances in the third period. If you were to look at the low man in ice time, you’d probably want to take a look at Tomas Tatar. There were a lot of penalties on Tuesday night, and Tatar doesn’t play on either special teams unit, but he still only managed to play seven minutes.

The last time Tufte was recalled, the Avalanche chose to scratch both of those veterans and put Kurtis MacDermid in the lineup as well. That’s another option.

We’ll find out after morning skate what the plan is. Stay tuned to Colorado Hockey Now for updates.