Nathan MacKinnon Progressing More, Denis Malgin Is Here

A quick morning skate diary from the media room of Ball Arena here. The Colorado Avalanche host the Montreal Canadiens tonight (6 p.m. start), trying to win their fifth game in the last six outings. Nathan MacKinnon did a lof of skating before the others took to the ice, in a lightly attended optional skate.

Here’s some footage from yours truly:

MacKinnon doing some one-on-one work with Shawn Allard pic.twitter.com/aT9EVlZBPf

— Adrian Dater (@adater) December 21, 2022

Some puck drills for MacK @ColHockeyNow pic.twitter.com/40Aed3gyxl

— Adrian Dater (@adater) December 21, 2022

MacK’s original prognosis was four weeks, and it’s 16 days today since that prognosis was made. He looked pretty good there there to me. Maybe there’s a chance he gets back a little early, who knows.

UPDATE: Jared Bednar said MacKinnon is “hungry to get back” but that it’ll probably be a couple more weeks.

Denis Malgin, acquired the other day from Toronto, was at the skate, wearing No. 81. He will make his Avalanche debut tonight.

We don’t know the Avalanche goalie yet, but I would be that it’ll be Alexandar Georgiev. He did not participate in the optional skate, which is a clue he will be the guy. Pavel Francouz was at the skate, however. We’ll have to wait ’til later to find out.

UPDATE: Georgie is in net tonight.

Because so few players took part in the skate, trying to guess the lines might not be accurate. But let’s assume the lineup will look mostly the same from the other night, with Malgin slotting in somewhere.

Here’s more on the Canadiens lineup for tonight (Montreal Hockey Now)