Avalanche Morning Skate Notebook from St. Louis: Grubauer returns

ST. LOUIS – Hello from snowy St. Louis, where the Avalanche will play a showdown game of sorts tonight against the defending Stanley Cup champion Blues at Enterprise Center.

Here are some lineup notes:

Philipp Grubauer will get the start in goal. Jared Bednar said he was tossing around the idea of starting Pavel Francouz again, but with Frankie being sick yesterday (he skated today though) he ultimately decided that Groob would get the nod.

Grubauer said he “feels real good” and excited to finally play again.

Anton Lindholm and Vladislav Kamenev will be the healthy scratches.

I talked some with Mikko Rantanen, whose last game in this building didn’t go so well. Was he “scared” when that injury first happened, scared what it could be? Actually, Rantanen said, he’d been playing with a bit of a balky ankle the previous couple of games, and he thinks that contributed a lot to the injury happening – not bad ice or anything.

Rantanen said he’s fully healed now.

I shot some video of Bednar’s media avail after the skate, for your viewing pleasure. One of the things I asked him about was Sam Girard and the power-play unit (i.e., what’s been wrong with it of late):

A sign in the Avs’ room: