Colorado Avalanche forward Andreas Martinsen, one of only two Norwegian players in the NHL, doesn’t play the finesse style typical of Europeans.

The Colorado Avalanche’s most recent Scandinavian team addition, Andreas Martinsen, plays some ugly hockey. He’s a perfectly fine skater, as you’d expect from a European NHLer, but he doesn’t display a lot of the finesse typical of Euro-trained players.

That may well earn him a more permanent spot on the Colorado Avalanche.

Andreas Martinsen is practically defenseman size at 6-foot-3, 220 pounds. (In fact, he outsizes Francois Beauchemin by a couple inches and 12 pounds — we won’t even get into the Tyson Barrie discussion.)

What’s more, Andreas Martinsen skates around like a big man with a slight chip on his shoulder. Or, perhaps the chip is actually a tiny Patrick Roy reminding him that the player he replaced, fellow Scandinavian Dennis Everberg, got sent down to the San Antonio Rampage because he “failed to finish his checks” on a regular basis.

Either way, Martinsen’s chip/mini-Roy leads him to this kind of play:

That’s right, Nashville Predators forward Barret Jackman nearly got arrested for speeding next county over. Notice, that was a completely legal hit. Martinsen simply caught him square in the chest with his shoulder before sending Jackman bowling over. I think there may have been a little hip action from Martinsen as well.

Hitting alone isn’t enough to secure a roster spot on the Colorado Avalanche or defenseman Nikita Zadorov would still be in burgundy and blue. (Never fear — he will again.)

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Andreas Martinsen has been pretty disciplined this season. He’s played in 14 games, but he’s earned only 13 minutes in penalties. That’s not a lot for such a physical player.

Likewise, Martinsen hasn’t gotten a ton of ice time on the fourth line — around 12 minutes average — but he has four points. Two of those points were goals, and one of them was this game-winning goal against the Nashville Predators:

This is an example of a player not giving up on a play. You could even call this an example of a player winning his battles. (You’d certainly call the play against Jackman that!)

You would not call either play pretty, though. They were both pretty down and ugly.

Yet all of those elements together combine to make the kind of hockey head coach Patrick Roy wants to see from his non-stars. Actually, take that back — he wants to see it from all his players. He wants to see the kind of gritty physicality that makes the team tough to play against. He wants to see players working hard and winning their battles.

Martinsen makes mistakes, no doubt — he played a pretty stinky game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. However, he gets right back up on that horse and rides same as any Colorado cowboy.

That may well earn him a more permanent spot on the roster. In a post-game presser, head coach Patrick Roy said of Martinsen:

“I was very happy for Martinsen. He’s been playing some good hockey for us. He’s tough to play against. We’re very happy with him right now.”

I don’t know that those words quite translate to “Find a place in Denver — we’re not sending you back down to San Antonio,” but they’re certainly a step in the right direction for Andreas Martinsen.