Avs training camp Day 2 wrap-up: Still unfit

Today’s Avs camp notebook starts off just like yesterday’s camp notebook: Five players were unable to practice today, still in the unfortunately titled “Unfit to play” classification. The captain, Gabe Landeskog, Erik Johnson, Brandon Saad, Philipp Grubauer and Keaton Middleton – all unfit for a second straight day.

At the end of training camp, the NHL will release the total number of players who tested positive for Covid-19. We won’t know their names. However, when the regular season starts, any player that tests positive will be named by the league/team.

This is obviously a camp setback already for coach Jared Bednar. He’s lost two valuable days of Avs camp where he could have seen guys like Landeskog and Saad work together, on their new line with Nazem Kadri. He can’t gauge just how good Erik Johnson looks, coming off postseason injuries. He can’t see how Philipp Grubauer is moving, after his playoff injury.

In that sense, training camp is starting right where the playoffs left off.

“It’s (a) different (protocol) for different guys,” Bednar said. “But I can’t comment on it.”

I’ll do a bit of speculation here: A guy or two might have tested positive, so their protocol is different than a guy who, say, they think may only have been exposed to that positive player but who tested negative. That’s my hunch anyway.

“It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world,” Bednar said. “With Saad out, he’s the one guy we approach a little bit different. Those (other) guys are in tune with the way we play and have been doing it for years. Saad, what we’ll do is, we’ll send him some of the meetings, having some discussions with him and make sure he’s getting the information that he needs.”

Grubauer not being able to play is certainly not good. This guy needs to play and get his timing. The Avs have an important divisional game in eight days (oh yeah, they’re ALL important divisional games) and Grubauer needs to be as sharp as he can.

I asked Bednar if he was worried any of the regular guys currently unfit to practice will be unable to play on opening night?

“At this point, no,” he said. “I’m confident we’ll get some of these guys back here and hopefully (have) a full roster for the 13th, but I’m not 100 percent sure. But I’m not overly worried about it either.”

Elsewhere:

• Ian Cole, just like Nathan MacKinnon from the day before, said the goal of this team is to win the Stanley Cup, full stop. “Anything short of that will be a disappointment,” Cole said.
• Cole is going without his mountain man beard this year, for a “more aerodynamic look.”
• Logan O’Connor met for some Zoomy Zoom Zoom, and said all the right things about “just wanting to help my team win” and “focusing on my game and no one else’s” vis a vis a question about a potential Avs camp “battle” for a top-12 job with Tyson Jost.
• O’Connor wants to try and play with a bit more patience with the puck this season, to give himself that extra half-second to survey the ice and make better decisions with the puck. You hear that all the time from coaches about what separates the good offensive players from the kids still struggling to find their way, and it’s that little extra patience level with the puck.
• With the World Junior tourney over Tuesday night, we can expect to see Bo Byram in Avs camp probably no later than Friday, maybe Thursday. Alex Newhook and Drew Helleson will go back to their respective colleges. No word just yet whether Justin Barron might get some time in camp before going back to Halifax of the QMJHL, but with no preseason games to play this year, I kind of doubt he’ll spend time at camp. But we’ll see.
• Cole said the team had a fairly serious team meeting shortly after Avs camp started, whereby, as he said, “it wasn’t quite a heart to heart”  but more of a thing where players really analyzed what went wrong in the second round against Dallas and didn’t make the injury excuse.
• “Bottom line: we lost,” Cole said.