The Colorado Avalanche completed their second annual Alumni Game against the DU Pioneers at Magness Arena on Sunday night. Unlike last year, the Avs came out on top, earning an 8-3 victory thanks to a two-goal performance from Cody McLeod.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The roster featured a stacked top line of Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, and Milan Hejduk. Local favorites such as Dan Hinote, Andrew Cogliano, Tyson Barrie, John-Michael Liles, Darren Helm, and McLeod also suited up, while former NHL goaltender Ryan Miller made a guest appearance between the pipes.<\/p>\n
Here are four fun takeaways from an event that was, once again, an absolute blast to cover.<\/p>\n
Hejduk can still snipe. No matter how many years go by, Hejduk continues to look like he\u2019s in game shape. I\u2019m pretty sure I made this exact same observation 12 months ago, too. Most notably, he still has that wicked wrist shot and put it on display against the Pioneers alumni.<\/p>\n
The in-game trade was a treat. Midway through the match, both teams paused for a hilarious mid-game trade announcement. Mark Rycroft, who dressed for the Avalanche, was traded to DU in exchange for Paul Stastny. The two met by the benches and were handed their new jerseys before joining their respective teams. Both players are alumni of both the Pioneers and Avalanche.<\/p>\n
Miller was a nice addition. I\u2019m not sure how or why Miller ended up participating in an Avalanche alumni event, but it was certainly fun to see the longtime NHLer in burgundy and blue.<\/p>\n
Forsberg\u2019s still got it. And don\u2019t let him tell you otherwise. Just like last year, the talent was still obvious, regardless of how self-deprecating Forsberg was before the game. Honestly, I\u2019m not sure he realizes just how good he still looks with the puck on his stick. Even after all these years, there\u2019s something special about watching Forsberg handle the puck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Avalanche completed their second annual Alumni Game against the DU Pioneers at Magness Arena on Sunday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,16474,4,7144],"class_list":["post-649124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-milan-hejduk","tag-nhl","tag-peter-forsberg"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117156399269910152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}