Avs Talk - A Colorado Avalanche Blog

No, it's not Jeff O'Neil and Jason Smith. It's Wes O'Neil and Wyatt Smith. The signing was announced today although all weekend long the Wyatt Smith signing was talked about on message boards. Yes, the state of the hockey world right now is so slow that the signing of a reserve forward was the talk of the weekend.

O'Neil, a former Islanders pick, has just finished up with the Notre Dame Fighting Irish and was second among team defenceman with 21 points. He's a big guy at 6'4" and 200lbs but he's rated at 6.5 D on HockeyFutures.com. So currently he's expected to be a 5th or 6th D-man who may not even live up to those high expectations. But he'll likely do well on the Lake Erie Monsters roster.

Wyatt Smith is a career reserve forward who spent 61 games with the Minnesota Wild last season which was a career high. Another player likely to be on the Monsters roster for most of the year.

Thankfully the Canada-Russia Super Series will be a nice distraction from all this intense off-season action. At least until rookie camp starts on September 8th. I'll be watching the Canada-Russia game in Saskatoon on September 5th and I'm looking forward to seeing John Tavares in action. TSN and Rogers will be broadcasting the games on TV and across the ol' InterWeb.