Morning Skate Diary: Donskoi getting close, and why it’s too soon to panic on Grubauer

Hello from the Pepsi Center, where the skidding Colorado Avalanche hope to start putting a real stop to that skid with a 7 p.m. tilt with the Dallas Stars.

Some lineup news about tonight: Philipp Grubauer starts in goal. The 28-year-old German is 2-5-1 in his last eight starts.

A lot of people seem to be either really worried about Grubauer or even wanting the Avs to go out and get some big-name, older goalie (Henrik Lundqvist, Carey Price, anyone?) but I can tell you that isn’t going to happen. The Avs are not going to take on a huge contract for an older goalie, period.

I’m not panicking on Grubauer because of what he did last year. He was not good in the first half last season, then got white hot for the final two months and got Avs not only into the playoffs, but won a round, the first Avs’ playoff win in 11 years.

So, let’s give him a chance to do that again before we start magically hoping Henrik Lundqvist is the same goalie he was five, 10 years ago.

Andre Burakovsky is in the lineup, after missing a day of practice because of illness. He, too, has been slumping, scoring-wise, He has not scored a goal in 11 straight games, though he does have three assists in the last two games.

I sat with Burakovsky this morning for a bit and one thing he said is, “I need to shoot more.”

Indeed, he’s only got three shots in the last three games.

Some good news: Joonas Donskoi skated with the team, albeit in a non-contact jersey. Jared Bednar, however, said if all of Donskoi’s tests go well today, he could return to regular practice in a regular jersey tomorrow.

So, that’s real good news.

Here are your lines and D pairs for tonight:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen

Nichushkin-Kadri-Burakovsky

Jost-Compher-Kamenev

Nieto-Bellemare-Calvert

Graves-Makar

Girard-Johnson

Cole-Zadorov