Brandon Saad out 2-4 weeks; Lineup for Avs vs. Blues today

LAS VEGAS – Well, what seemed would be a ho-hum morning skate Zoom call had a jolt of bad news to it today, from St. Louis: Brandon Saad out 2-4 weeks with a lower-body injury.

Jared Bednar made the unfortunate disclosure not too long ago from St. Louis, where the Avs will play at 5 p.m. to finish off a four-game series that seems like it’s taken three years to complete. I don’t know where/what type of injury Saad has. Let’s hope it’s closer to two weeks and not four, though even if it’s four Saad might still not miss much, if any, playoff time. We still don’t know exactly when the playoffs are going to start now.

It’s a loss, no question about it. Saad has had a pretty good year, and opponents have to respect his skill out there. Now, they can focus in even more on the Avs’ top line.

More news from Bednar’s presser: Jonas Johansson will start in goal today. I guess I’d say I’m fairly surprised by that decision, as Devan Dubnyk has only played one game in the past few days and should have been rested. Then again, JoJo won his previous two starts before the Avs got Doobie, so Bednar obviously has enough confidence that he can get this one.

I don’t know, though, I just feel like you go with your best players in games you want to win and I just don’t think JoJo is as good as Doob. I hope to eat these words later.

Jacob MacDonald also is now “week to week” after suffering some kind of injury while practicing or training recently.

Here come the damn injuries again, in other words.

Your lineup for today:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Burakovsky

Soderberg-Jost-Nichushkin

Compher-Kadri-Kaut

O’Brien-Bellemare-Sherwood

D

Toews-Girard

Graves-Makar

Nemeth-Timmins

Johansson

NOTEBOOK: Interesting to see Martin Kaut now playing on a line with Kadri. Obviously, the Brandon Saad absence has something to do with that, but this is a nice chance for Kaut to show more. … Philipp Grubauer, as I reported last night, is in St. Louis with the team. He will resume skating tomorrow here in Vegas, though. I guess it’s anybody’s guess who will start Wednesday’s game here against the Golden Knights. If JoJo has a great game today, maybe he gets the start here too. Or, maybe they just say “you’re in Groob” and put him back after one practice. Or, maybe Doob starts. It’ll be one of the three, sources say. … Mikko Rantanen will skate today in Denver. As of yesterday, he was still on the Covid list, but it would seem likely that today he’ll come off it. … Joonas Donskoi will resume skating with the team on Thursday in Denver. … Avs are -155 favorites to win outright at SuperBook Colorado, and SuperBook also has boosted the payout odds from -102 to +120 if Cale Makar gets a power-play point. Check it out here.