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Exclusive: Nathan MacKinnon injury not believed to be serious (UPDATED)

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Nathan MacKinnon

Not serious. That’s the early word, from a couple of NHL sources, about the injury to Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon, Colorado Hockey Now can report.

This is where I have to insert a “Hey, it’s not official yet, something could change”, but based on my experience with the people I’m hearing it from, I believe the story will be proven correct in the final analysis.

MacKinnon suffered a mysterious lower-body injury in last night’s game with the Minnesota Wild, and there has been no information from the team since. MacKinnon entered last night’s game as the Avs’ leading scorer. He’s a two-time runner-up for the NHL’s Hart Trophy and the reigning Lady Byng winner.

We’ll get more official word from the Avalanche tomorrow on things, as the team had the day off from all hockey activities today. But for now, it appears as if the Avs dodged a bullet with regard to the MacKinnon injury.

UPDATE: No more than 1-2 weeks I’m hearing further. Unfortunately, No. 29 will miss a few games because of this, but I’m told it should be no longer than the two weeks, and quite possibly just the one week.

The Avs moved Shane Bowers onto the regular roster today, not just because of MacKinnon’s injury, but that of P.E. Bellemare’s too probably. Avs also moved Adam Werner onto the regular roster, putting Hunter Miska on the taxi squad, and they also moved Jacob MacDonald off the regular roster.

I’m hearing that there’s a good chance Matt Calvert gets put on Long Term Injured Reserve, which would take his $2.85 million temporarily off the books. In order to go on LTIR, players need to miss at least 10 games or 24 days, whichever comes first. We’ll see what is made official by tomorrow, but as it stands now, with the latest moves on the cap, the Avs have $1,527 of cap room, folks. That’s according to our partners on this site, PuckPedia.

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