Nathan MacKinnon skating – and shooting pucks with “full force” – today in Denver

Nathan MacKinnon was skating and shooting pucks today at the Avalanche practice facility this morning. I didn’t witness it myself, but a couple of eyewitnesses tell me there didn’t seem to be too much bothering him. In fact, one eyewitness tells me No. 29 was shooting pucks “with full force.”

Sooo…..maybe this wasn’t as bad as first feared. Then again, who knows? There is not expected to be any update on MacKinnon until tomorrow. But this is certainly interesting news eh?

Again, I’m told that MacKinnon was shooting pucks and looking like his normal self. He flew back to Denver yesterday morning, and the Avs beat the Calgary Flames 2-1 without him. That makes the Avs 20-2-3 in the last 25 games he’s missed.

MacKinnon fought Minnesota’s Matt Dumba in Sunday’s game in Minnesota, and it was feared he might have suffered the injury there. Jared Bednar said that the cause for alarm with MacKinnon and potential injury was “high.”

If I hear more later, I’ll let you know. Maybe the Avs dodged a bullet here. We’ll see.

UPDATE: I’ve actually since seen some video (I’m not going to post it though) and MacKinnon is ripping one-timers, one after the other, in it. Skills coach Shawn Allard was feeding him pucks for the one-timers. Didn’t seem like any serious hand injury to me.