Avalanche Gameday: Lineup In Flux; Chasing The Game

The Colorado Avalanche are in the middle of a tough stretch of games. It’s even tougher to be in a patch like this when you’re missing some key players.

Artturi Lehkonen skated with the team today in a regular jersey, but is still at least a week or two away from playing. Bowen Byram was placed on injured reserve over the weekend and will miss somewhere between 7-14 days. And now, they might be without another important defenseman ahead of a big matchup with the Boston Bruins.

Josh Manson took morning skate, but you could tell he wasn’t comfortable. He was constantly flexing one of his legs, testing his mobility. In the end, he left skate early and is a question mark for tonight.

“Day-to-day, if he’s not in,” Bednar said. “He was out on the ice early, left early, so he’s testing some things out.”

Bednar called him a game-time decision. Sam Malinski was called up, and I anticipate he will play, as he was wearing a powerplay jersey for morning skate. Manson isn’t the only game-time decision, though.

Joel Kiviranta missed skate, but will play tonight. Also missing was Miles Wood, who missed last game due to illness. He’s still under the weather, and the team doesn’t know if he’ll be able to go tonight. He was also under the weather in Dallas, so whatever he’s dealing with has lingered for a little while.

The Bruins currently are tied for first place in the Eastern Conference, and will be a tough test for Colorado.

“It’s a good measuring stick, lets you know where you’re at,” Bednar said. “I wish we were going into it not banged up, but every team goes through that. You’re going to have to grind.”

Playing From Behind

The Avalanche have had to play from behind a lot recently, and they’ve done quite well, coming back and winning games after trailing for significant portions of the game, but they’d prefer to not have to do that.

“You never want to chase the game and come from behind,” Ryan Johansen told me. “We’ve been fortunate enough to pull some off, but we can’t keep doing that to ourselves. Just have to execute better early on in games.”

Although they’ve been trailing a lot in games, the message doesn’t change – play your game.

“We trust the process right now. We don’t really look at the score,” Jonathan Drouin told me. “Obviously, sometimes you’re going to peek, but no panic. We stick to our process and we’ve come back in games. It would be nice to have the lead a little bit more and not chase them, but I think we’ve done a good job of staying even keel and doing what we’re supposed to do, even though we’re down.”

Other News And Notes

• Alexandar Georgiev will start in net for the Avalanche against the Bruins. Colorado really needs a big performance out of him, just a few days after Bednar called out his goaltending.
• Jeremy Swayman is expected to start for the Bruins.
• With all the question marks surrounding the team, I couldn’t tell you what the lines will be. If Wood and Manson can’t play, the Avalanche only have 17 skaters, so they’d probably have to bring someone up. Ben Meyers is one game away from having to go through waivers the next time Colorado wants to send him down.
• *UPDATE* Almost minutes after hitting publish, the Avalanche recalled Jason Polin. Probably an indication Wood won’t play. Polin has just one point in 13 AHL games this year but they liked his camp.
• Drouin mentioned in camp that it was the healthiest he’s felt in years, and reiterated that to me today. I’ll have more of that up later at CHN.
• Also have had some good chats with Avalanche skaters about MacKinnon’s dominance of late, so look for that in the next few days.