Jared Bednar has been pestered by the media for over a week now on when super prospect Bowen Byram would make his long-awaited NHL debut.

That wait is over.

Byram, along with newly acquired Greg Pateryn, will enter the Avalanche lineup on Thursday evening in place of Erik Johnson and Dennis Gilbert. While Andre Burakovsky was able to hit the ice during morning skate, he is not ready to play just yet, leaving the Avs to run with the same eleven forward, seven defensemen setup they played with on Thursday.

The fourth overall pick from the 2019 draft, Byram is coming off an impressive World Junior tournament where he helped lead Canada to a Silver medal. After finishing his quarantine on Saturday, he’s been on the ice every day and it was just a matter of time before he was inserted into the lineup. The trade of Ian Cole on Tuesday has opened up some room for Byram to play and gives the Avs more flexibility in how they want to handle the log jam with their defense.

Byram is not the only player to watch for tonight. Hunter Miska will be between the pipes, making his first NHL start and giving Philipp Grubauer a night off on the first half of a back to back. The 25-year-old goaltender earned an NHL deal last season with his strong play in Loveland (Bednar said Miska was “arguably [the Eagles’] MVP” last year) and now gets a chance to show what he can do at the next level.

Johnson’s absence from the lineup should not come as a surprise, as he was originally not scheduled to come into the lineup for a handful of games. Due to COVID protocol, he was not able to do anything for over a week, and his insertion into the lineup on Tuesday was only due to the Avs cap situation and not having other options.

The Avs will look to sweep this two-game series against the Kings before immediately heading to Anaheim for another matchup on Friday.

The projected lineup tonight:

Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen
Saad-Kadri-Nichushkin
Jost-Compher-Donskoi
Bellemare-Calvert

Toews-Makar
Graves-Girard
Timmins-Pateryn
Byram

Miska

With the imbalance on the lineup, expect a lot of fluidity from these lines and pairings tonight.