Avalanche Gameday: Colton Probable, Finding The Right Spots For Prosvetov

It appears the Colorado Avalanche will get Ross Colton back after a short absence.

The 27 year old center was back on the ice on Tuesday for morning skate, and was dressed in his usual Burgundy jersey, which all the players on the second powerplay unit wear. He was set up at his usual spot around the net, while Bowen Byram, Devon Toews, and Samuel Girard worked the umbrella.

Colton wasn’t available to speak to the media after practice, but that’s not a huge surprise. The Avalanche typically hold off on letting injured players speak until it’s confirmed they are back. After skate, Jared Bednar declared Colton as “probable” to play against the New York Islanders, so there’s still some wiggle room there.

If he does indeed return to the lineup, it will be interesting to see what Bednar does with his lines. Last game, he removed Valeri Nichushkin from the top line and moved him down to play with Ryan Johansen and Miles Wood. Does Colton replace Johansen on that line? He and Wood have been linemates from the start of the year, so it would make sense, but the Avalanche don’t run even strength lines at morning skate, so we won’t know until warmups.

In net, the Avalanche will go back to Alexandar Georgiev. Not a huge surprise, considering he faced just 11 shots last game. Perhaps the bigger surprise was that he started the Sharks game at all. That seemed like a good spot to get Ivan Prosvetov in.

Colorado’s schedule will get a little tougher over the coming weeks, so the team will have to find a way to use their backup.

“It’ll be more difficult, but we’ll have to find a spot to get Prosy in the net,” Bednar said on Tuesday. “Georgie’s played really well. We’re going to use him while he’s feeling good and when he needs a break, we’ll put Prosy in. We have confidence in Prosy too, but Georgie’s just sort of dialing up his game a little bit, so we want to keep giving him a chance to continue to grow and play the highest level he can.”

Other News And Notes

• Former Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov is expected to start for the Islanders. He has given New York solid goaltending when he’s been in net, with a .918 save percentage.
• Nathan MacKinnon was named the #1 star of December, but that should come as no surprise.
• As for who the other scratch is, your guess is as good as mine. Kurtis MacDermid stayed on the ice late, but so did Joel Kiviranta and Fredrik Olofsson. I expect it to be MacDermid, but morning skate didn’t confirm anything one way or the other.