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Who Will Be Back? Part 2 - Free Agent Defensemen and Goalies

Written by Sean Payton | 31 March 2009

As promised, part 2. Below are the Avs Free Agent defensemen and goalies for this coming off season. Even though teams tend to almost always retain RFAs, I’ve added them to this list, as I don’t think all of the Avs RFAs will be retained. Like last post, I’ve sorted them into three buckets - Will Be Resigned, Will Not Be Back and Close Calls.

UFA Defensemen
Daniel Tjarnqvist
Lawrence Nycholat

UFA Goalies
Andrew Raycroft

RFA Defensemen
Kyle Cumiskey
Mike Vernace

RFA Goalies
Peter Budaj

Will Be Resigned
Mike Vernace - He’s an RFA and he has been the most consistent of the all of the Avs late call ups this season. As things stand now, good chance to be our 6th or 7th defenseman next season.

Kyle Cumiskey - He’s an RFA as well. He did not have a great season prior to suffering a season ending shoulder injury and there is reason to believe Kyle may not be able to make the jump to the NHL. However, I think his upside is still too high to give up on him just quite yet.

Will Not Be Back
Daniel Tjarnqvist - He has been about what you would have expected. He was signed to be an NHL ready plug when a dman went down this season. The recent play of young guys who could actually develop and improve, like Verance and Peltier, plus having other young guys who could be a good camp away from challenging for a spot like Ryan Wilson and Cumiskey (assuming he is retained) make a career journeyman like Tjarnqvist very expendable.

Lawrence Nycholat - Nycholat is a poor man’s Daniel Tjarnqvist. Next…

Peter Budaj - 2008-09 was Budaj’s big chance to be a clear cut NHL starter. Budaj blew his chance. Obviously, changes have to happen. It’s true that Budaj could be retained to be a backup, but I think that Raycroft is a more consistent goaltender from night to night and will be the choice of either goalie is retained.

Close Calls
Andrew Raycroft - You could make a good case that the Avs need to start over in goal completely, but its difficult to find one Free Agent goalie, let alone two. Yes, its possible that either Jason Bacashihua or Tyler Weiman get a shot to backup next season, but the fact that neither have been called up at any time this season tells me that management doesn’t believe either of these guys is the answer. Raycroft is not an NHL starter, but he has shown this season that he can be reliable backup.

There you have it. We will know in September how close my predictions are...
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