Avalanche Friday practice notebook

EDMONTON, ALBERTA – A fairly uneventful last 36 hours for the Avalanche here in Edmonton, as the team returned to the practice ice today after an off-day Thursday.

Sam Girard returned to Avalanche practice after being off skates for a couple days. He is considered back and ready to go for Sunday’s Western Conference round-robin game against the St. Louis Blues at Rogers Place.

The only Avs regular who did not practice today was forward Andre Burakovsky. But coach Jared Bednar said Burakovsky should be back on Saturday for practice.

Avs players went out for a team dinner last night, while the coaches hung out together elsewhere.

A few other notables:

• Bednar said he is still planning on starting both goalies during the three round-robin games. I think Philipp Grubauer is going to start against the Blues on Sunday and Pavel Francouz will start the Wednesday game against Dallas. But we’ll see on that when the time comes.
• Grubauer, J.T. Compher and Nikita Zadorov were the three Avalanche players made available after practice. Grubauer answered a few questions in German.
• Grubauer said a lot of players go to the Tim Horton’s food truck inside the bubble around the hotel, for morning coffee and such. That Tim Horton’s truck, I’ve heard, has done quite the gangbuster business.
• Zadorov said he will play his same kind of physical game in the postseason.
• Compher, who never has too much to say, being one of the quieter Avs players, said he’s felt good on the ice so far since camp started.
• A reminder that Sunday’s game will be shown on Altitude, which means Comcast and DISH subscribers won’t see it, barring a late breakthrough in the impasse that has lasted since 2019. The game will be broadcast on NBCSN, but will be blacked out in the Denver area to all cable subscribers because of the exclusive territorial agreement Altitude has for all the round-round and first-round games.