Avalanche Notebook: Timeline for MacKinnon's return becoming clearer

About half of the Colorado Avalanche took to the practice ice today as the other half took the day off following an exhausting 2-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens. Included in the group on the ice today were injured forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Blake Comeau and both shed the non-contact jerseys they had previously worn and participated in the full-but-brief practice.

The team skated for just about 30 minutes before leaving the ice to prepare for their afternoon departure to Winnipeg, where they are set to take on the Central Division’s second place Jets tomorrow night.

Following the light workout, head coach Jared Bednar met with the media to discuss the plans for this weekend’s games, including the timeline for returns of MacKinnon and Comeau to the regular lineup.

Bednar said MacKinnon won’t travel with the team this weekend and is officially listed as ‘questionable’ for the Sunday’s matinee home tilt against the Edmonton Oilers. Comeau, however, will be returning to the lineup against the Jets tomorrow night and will take his familiar place on the right side of the ice next to Matt Nieto and Carl Soderberg.

Because of Comeau’s return, the Avalanche will be forced to make at least one lineup change from last night’s group that held on to win a franchise record tying tenth consecutive home game. As of today, there has been no decision made on which forward will come out of the lineup but it’s a fair assumption to look at the line of A.J. Greer, Dominic Toninato, and Nail Yakupov for the likeliest substitution. Given Toninato is the center of the group, it’s likely he is safe and one of Greer or Yakupov is the odd man out.

Beyond that, still no timelines have been given for the mysteriously injured Sven Andrighetto and Mark Barberio, neither of whom are skating with the team, though Bednar recently started Barberio is “getting better.”

Following his 44-save shutout last night, Semyon Varlamov is getting the night off tomorrow to rest, giving the starting reins back over to Jonathan Bernier, but Varlamov will return to the cage on Sunday against Edmonton.

That does it for us from practice today. Stay tuned here at BSN Denver for all your Avalanche updates!

Update: Rocco Grimaldi has been sent back down to San Antonio.