Colorado Avalanche Gameday: MacKinnon In, Compher Ailing

The Colorado Avalanche will have their last preseason game tonight against the Dallas Stars at Ball Arena. It was a short practice today with an emphasis on the power play. The most interesting part of the morning, however, was forward J.T. Compher practicing in a red non-contact sweater. Compher had not been seen in the practice facility for a few days. So to see him in a non-contact is not shocking, to say the least. It is just another man to add to the list of injured players that may not start the season.

There have been no real updates on Gabriel Landeskog other than he is doing gym workouts. Landeskog is slated to miss the start of the year. Darren Helm is progressing, as he is skating in a non-contact sweater but with the team for short stints in practice. Defenseman Jacob MacDonald “tweaked something” according to coach Jared Bednar and will miss time as well. He was impressing as an extra man that could play both defense and wing for the Colorado Avalanche. One curious absence from the locker room has been Mikhail Maltsev. There has been no word on if it is injury-related or roster-related, but certainly something to keep an eye on.

As for the game tonight, it will be a veteran heavy lineup with most of the players set for the opening night roster. We will probably see most of the bubble players still get some ice time as coach Bednar wants one last look at them. Coach Bednar stated that “final cuts won’t be until after the game on Wednesday,” so we may learn their names later tonight.

My predicted lines for tonight

Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Rantanen

Nichuskin-Newhook-Rodrigues

Meyers-Sedlak-Blidh

Cogliano- Bowers- Kaut

Makar- Toews

Girard-Manson

Byram-Johnson

Georgiev(starter)

Francouz