Jost will sign with Avalanche sooner than later
At this rate, the business marriage between the Avalanche and 2016 first-round draft pick Tyson Jost will be made in March or early April. Given the Avs’ struggles and Jost’s success at North Dakota and with Team Canada at the World Junior Championship, the NHL team probably will persuade Jost to sign his entry-level contract in the weeks after his 19th birthday on March 17.
The St. Patrick’s Day-born Jost will be one and done at North Dakota.
Colorado is the NHL’s worst team and in need of young talent. Because of that, North Dakota’s investment in Jost won’t pay long-term dividends. The decision to leave college early by signing an NHL entry-level contract is always up to the player. But this player probably won’t turn down Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic and the chance to begin his NHL career next season — or possibly at the end of this season, depending on how far the defending NCAA champions go in the postseason.
Jost, the No. 10 overall selection last June, is North Dakota’s second-leading scorer, with 18 points in 17 games. He’s also tied for second in goals, with seven, and third in plus-minus, at plus-11. In Canada’s WJC opener last week against Russia, Jost scored his team’s first goal and was considered his team’s best player in the 5-3 victory. He didn’t do much offensively in two ensuing games — in 5-0 and 10-2 routs of Slovakia and Latvia, respectively.
Jost is just one of two NCAA players on Team Canada, along with defenseman Dante Fabbro of Boston University, and both have limited options in pursuing their NHL dreams. If Jost and Fabbro were playing major junior in the Canadian Hockey League like most Team Canada players, they could sign their entrylevel contracts at any time, attend their teams’ training camps in September and play nine NHL regular-season games before returning to their junior teams and preserve the first year of their contracts.
That test-run strategy was recently used by 2015 Arizona first-round draft pick Dylan Strome, who attended the Coyotes’ training camp/preseason and played in seven NHL regular-season games in the fall before returning to the Erie Otters of the Ontario Hockey League. Strome is now Team Canada’s captain at the World Juniors, and his NHL contract won’t kick in until next season.
Jost, however, can’t attend the Avalanche’s training camp and preserve his NCAA eligibility. He can’t participate in anything more than the Avs’ week-long summer prospects camp and return to North Dakota. But in the end, Jost will make his decision to sign this spring because the Avs need him. He can immediately help the NHL team, and that’s enough reason to leave college.
North Dakota signed Jost before the Avalanche drafted the native of St. Albert, Alberta, an Edmonton suburb. If Jost was drafted by another NHL team, the Fighting Hawks would have a far better chance in keeping him another year.
Footnotes. The Avalanche has two draftees at the WJC in Toronto and Montreal. Sweden third-string goalie Adam Werner, a professional in his homeland, was selected by Colorado in the fifth round (131st overall) last June. Werner, 19, did not dress in the Swedes’ first three games. … The University of Denver has two WJC players: forwards Troy Terry of Team USA and Henrik Borgstrom of Finland. Terry, from Highlands Ranch, entered Saturday tied for eighth in tournament goals with two. He had the game-winning goal and was named U.S. player of the game in Thursday’s victory over Russia.