Avalanche coach Jared Bednar on Wednesday said star center Nathan MacKinnon will miss three weeks, “give or take,” with a lower-body injury he sustained in Saturday’s 4-2 loss at Columbus.
MacKinnon logged 20:40 and didn’t seem to miss a shift in his first pointless game this season. He missed the Avs’ first two games because of a positive COVID test. Now he’s set to miss even more.
“Coming out of the game it didn’t feel the way he wanted it to feel,” Bednar said of MacKinnon’s injury.
J.T. Compher will again step in for MacKinnon, centering the top line with wingers Gabe Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. The versatile Compher has the ability to slot in on any of the four lines.
MacKinnon is out of the lineup when a handful of other key players either returned Saturday or will return for Thursday’s game against the visiting Vancouver Canucks. Top-pair defenseman Cale Makar and top-six forward Valeri Nichushkin have been cleared for the Canucks game, and Rantanen, forward Andre Burakovsky and defenseman Devon Toews returned on Saturday.
The Avs stand a disappointing 4-5-1 through 10 games and injuries have played a big part.
“The injuries that we’ve gotten and the guys that are missing time are our key guys, and sometimes that’s the way it goes,” Bednar said. “We just have to work through it, work out of it, and it’s just another little obstacle in our way. Hopefully, Nate can get back and get healthy and come out and play hungry like he always has and make a huge impact. But for now, we’re going to do without him.”
Nathan MacKinnon is out approximately 3 weeks. Here’s what veteran #Avs D Erik Johnson had to say about the loss pic.twitter.com/1SOiJ9ocwG
— Mike Chambers (@MikeChambers) November 10, 2021
Defenseman Sam Girard might also be unavailable Thursday after leaving practice Wednesday with an apparent injury. Bednar said he didn’t immediately talk to the trainers after practice about Girard.
Girard was practicing on the second power-play unit before he left the ice. He was replaced by rookie defenseman Bo Byram, who was seemingly practicing in a scratched role Tuesday and Wednesday. Byram led the Avs in ice time at Columbus on the first-paring with Toews and Byram ran the No. 1 power-play unit.
But in two consecutive practices, Byram partnered with often-scratched Kurtis MacDermid at even strength and was not on either power-play unit until Girard skated off.
Despite appearances, Bednar said Byram, 20, is not in the dog house.
“I don’t have any plans in sitting Bo,” the coach said.
Makar will partner with Toews when he returns from a two-game absence. Bednar said Byram will slot in with the second or third pairing, despite not practicing alongside any of those players — Girard, Erik Johnson, Jack Johnson and Ryan Murray.
“We’ll try him with the guys that we want eating the most minutes — Bo is one of them,” Bednar said. “I’d like to play him with another offensive guy because I think they have the ability to create on their own, help other lines create. I like the paring of Toews and Makar, obviously. You could see him with Girard. That’s how we’d probably start if Girard is good to go. If not we’ll adjust from there.”
Footnotes. The Avs were 4-4 in October, snapping a 14-month streak of posting winning records. They haven’t had a below-.500 record in a month since going 3-7 in January 2019. Colorado is 0-1-1 in November. … Defenseman Erik Johnson played in his 587th game with the Avs on Saturday, surpassing former forward Matt Duchene for seventh-most in team history (since 1995). Johnson is 11 games shy of tying former forward Alex Tanguay for sixth. Former forward Milan Hejduk is Colorado’s all-time leader in games played, at 1,020, followed by former center and current general manager Joe Sakic (870), former defenseman Adam Foote (760), current left wing and team captain Gabe Landeskog (695), and former forward Cody McLeod (659).
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