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Ryan Murray out indefinitely for Colorado Avalanche

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David Zalubowski/AP

On a day in which Nathan MacKinnon was back in a regular jersey at Colorado Avalanche practice, there was some bad medical news: Veteran defenseman Ryan Murray will be out indefinitely because of the lower-body injury he sustained Saturday night.

Murray played just 11 seconds against the Nashville Predators before pulling up lame. Avs coach Jared Bednar gave a downbeat assessment of Murray’s status, saying it’s “not great. He’ll continue to get evaluated. Let’s call it indefinite right now, but as he gets evaluated, hopefully we’ll get a timeline.”

Murray is likely to go on Long Term Injured Reserve, which would free up his $2 million cap hit for a possible replacement. As of this second, as I type, there has been no new callup from the Colorado Eagles.

I would bet that Jacob MacDonald would be the call-up, but we’ll see. Justin Barron returned from injury to play for the Eagles over the weekend, and looked real good. But I have a hunch the Avs will want to keep him at the AHL level and keep getting reps in.

I thought Murray had been playing better of late, so this is not just a totally insignificant loss here. He’s a veteran who has some talent. That said, he was likely to be an odd-man-out with the return of Bo Byram.

Let’s hope that Murray can return for a playoff run, because guys like him can be very valuable at that time. How many times have we seen inexperienced D-men pressed into playoff duty when injuries strike, to the Avs’ detriment?

Remember the playoffs in 2018 when David Warsofsky and Duncan Siemens had to play regular shifts against the Nashville Predators, when guys like Erik Johnson and Sam Girard went down?

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