Avalanche Mega Off-Day Notebook: Forwards mostly healthy again, and Nathan MacKinnon on eating right

Sorry there was a blank spot in yesterday’s coverage. It was a planes, trains and automobiles kind of Monday for me, so I didn’t make it to Denver until this morning, after a night in Orlando, Fla., where I checked in to a fleabag hotel at 1 a.m. and was back up and at ’em, fresh as a daisy, at 4:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight. The flight started in Burlington, Vt. (don’t ask).

I was at practice today, though, and will run down a list of items, including:

• Thirteen seconds of footage of Cale Makar skating around in a pumpkin jersey, before regular practice. He did not skate with teammates for the practice, and won’t play Wednesday against the Philadelphia Flyers. But Jared Bednar said he has been feeling better every day since suffering that upper-body injury Saturday night in Boston.

• To me, and you too I’m sure, it’s just all a positive that he’s even out there doing anything hockey-wise, after that scare Saturday. Can’t imagine it’ll be any more than another week he’s out of the lineup, if that.
• Nazem Kadri is back in the lineup, after missing three games. He said he had been playing with something, then “tweaked” it a bit in Toronto, but is good to go now. He will center a line with Andre Burakovsky and Joonas Donskoi against the Flyers.
• Philipp Grubauer may or may not start the game against the Flyers. Basically, Bednar said it’ll depend how Groob responded to today’s practice, but if the man himself’s words and demeanor were to be the barometer, it would seem there’s a good chance he’ll start. Grubauer said he feels real good (and isn’t worried about any recurring injury of whatever it is that has kept him out lately).
• I bumped into former Av Jan Hejda at practice today. He still lives in the area and does a lot of youth hockey work. He also had a nice quip: “I’m the greatest No. 8 D-man in Avs history!”
• I asked Nathan MacKinnon, who has less body fat, or so it seems, than earlier in this career if he’s on some specialized diet – you know, some gluten-free thing or some Atkinson’s Diet – and this was his response:

“I don’t have a specific diet. I just try to dial it in and get enough rest as I can. I’ve definitely learned a lot in the years that I’ve been playing, and I definitely wasn’t as focused as I am now. I want to be good in the third. But I think our whole team is pretty dialed in. I’ve been on some teams that weren’t so dialed in, and we’ve got a lot of guys who want to be great and take care of themselves. So, it’s easy to feed off of each other.”

• The biggest thing I’ve noticed about MacKinnon in the last two or three years – but especially this year – is that he doesn’t get tired at the end of shifts. In the first handful of years, you couldn’t always say that. That’s where all that conditioning and good living pays off.
• MacKinnon is a scratch golfer, and I asked what his handicap is these days?
• “Not as good as it used to be,” he said. “I’m not playing as much.”
• In other words, more focus on hockey.
• Gabe Landeskog, on the moment he held his baby daughter in his arms for the first time, which was only a few weeks ago: “I was bawlin,'” he said. Landeskog called the time he got to be with his first child, during that nearly six-week injury absence, as the big “silver lining” to the whole thing.
• Look who’s leading the league in plus-minus:

• Avalanche prospect Matthew Stienburg, drafted 63rd overall this year, will miss the next 6-8 weeks at Cornell because of thumb surgery.
• Erik Johnson should resume skating later this week.
• A bit of a shocker today, with the firing of Dallas and former DU coach Jim Montgomery. It was definitely a topic of conversation around the rink today. The Stars are obviously a Central Division rival, and you have to wonder how the whole thing will affect the team on the ice moving forward.
• Bednar was asked about it, and he said he was shocked like everyone else. He said he has only met Montgomery in passing since they both became NHL head coaches.
• The game tomorrow is a 7:30 start, because it’ll be on NBCSN.