Avalanche lines and D pairs for Blue Jackets tonight; Surgery for Zadorov

A brief morning skate notebook here, from the Pepsi Center, where the 9-5-2 Avalanche take on the 6-7-3 Columbus Blue Jackets.

Most of this is going to be injury updates:

• Nikita Zadorov suffered a broken jaw from that puck to the face the other night. He had surgery on it Friday night. Jared Bednar said he’s “week to week.” I really wouldn’t be surprised if Big Z returns in just a couple of weeks, though. He can wear a mask and play through it. If the doctors let him, that is.
• Bednar said he is still evaluating whether to call up another defenseman from the minors. The Avs currently have six healthy D-men, and most teams like to have seven available. But we’ll see.
• The news is still frustratingly vague on just when Mikko Rantanen might return. He’s doing off-ice workouts and things like that, but still has yet to skate since his injury in St. Louis. Bednar said he just doesn’t know exactly when he’ll resume skating. So, we have to keep waiting.
• Gabe Landeskog will be out longer still, it would seem, though he did post a picture on his Instagram account last night that seemed to show him without that boot cast on his lower right leg.
• Jayson Megna was recalled by the Avs from the Eagles, but he’ll be the lone healthy scratch tonight.
• Nathan MacKinnon did not participate in the morning skate, but he will play tonight, Bednar said.
• Pavel Francouz in net. Bednar said Philipp Grubauer will go on the upcoming road trip and that he “hopes” he’ll be ready to return Tuesday night in Winnipeg.

So, these are the lines for tonight:

Calvert-MacKinnon-Donskoi

Jost-Kadri-Compher

Nieto-Bellemare-Nichushkin

Burakovsky-Kamenev-Tynan

D

Girard-Johnson

Cole-Makar

Graves-Barberio

We’ll see, actually, if Cole is matched with Makar. Graves and Makar played together last game and did pretty well, but Cole has been matched with Makar previously.