Central Notes: Girard, Berglund, Saros

Although we’re well into November, there is still one more decision to be made when it comes to a junior-aged player officially burning the first year of his entry-level contract.  That happens to be in Colorado, where recently-acquired defenseman Samuel Girard is scheduled to play in his ninth and tenth games for the Avalanche over the weekend.

Mike Chambers of the Denver Post suggests that the team is highly likely to keep the 19-year-old up with the big club.  Although he has only played three games in an Avalanche uniform (the other five coming with Nashville), Girard has already made quite the impact, logging more than 22 minutes per game while playing alongside Erik Johnson on the top pairing.  Although it’s not likely that he’ll be able to sustain that workload for the rest of the season, it’s certainly hard to imagine Colorado choosing to send him back to junior within the next day or two considering how big of a role he already has.  As is the case with other teenaged players, the next threshold will be 40 games on the active roster which accrues a season towards unrestricted free agency eligibility.

Elsewhere in the Central:

• Blues center Patrik Berglund will be re-evaluated by the team next week as he continues his rehab from offseason shoulder surgery, notes Jim Thomas of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The 29-year-old has been with St. Louis throughout their current road trip and is hopeful that he could get the green light to return before his original target of early December.
• Yesterday, the Predators demoted backup goalie Jusse Saros in what was a bit of a surprising move. Head coach Peter Laviolette told Adam Vingan of The Tennessean that the decision was made primarily to give Saros some playing time; he has only made four starts so far this season.  Nashville isn’t set to play back-to-back until December 4th and 5th so there’s a good chance Saros and Anders Lindback will be flipped once again at that time.