Avalanche notebook: Old faces in new places

The Colorado Avalanche took the ice this morning at the Pepsi Center as they prepare for another important game (they all are at this point) as the Minnesota Wild come calling tonight.

In a scheduled oddity favoring the Avalanche, it’s the third straight game in which they play an opponent who played the night before while the Avalanche idled. They’ve won the last two over the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames, leaving them just on the outside of the Western Conference playoff race.

Going into tonight, the Avalanche will roll out the same lineup as previous games except Anton Lindholm makes his return to the lineup after getting hurt on February 18 against the Edmonton Oilers. He takes the place of David Warsofsky, who was sent back down to San Antonio.

Lindholm had started to settle into a nice rhythm and was finding consistently positive results next to Tyson Barrie, something almost all other defensemen have struggled to do next to Barrie this season. Because of the injury to Erik Johnson (in the same game as Lindholm got hurt, oddly enough), Lindholm won’t be returning next to Barrie but will instead slot in next to Duncan Siemens.

The rest of the lineup remains the same as against Calgary.

News and Notes

• News broke this morning and was confirmed that the Avalanche had placed defenseman Andrei Mironov on unconditional waivers and terminated his contract. It was a mutual agreement as Mironov’s initial season in North America never really got off the ground. It’s a disappointing end to what began as a promising and interesting use of a fourth-round selection back in 2015.
• Sven Andrighetto skated long after most of his teammates had left the ice. He was still wearing the no-contact jersey but he and assistant coach Ray Bennett were running drills long after most of the team had called it a morning. Typically in a player’s path towards returning to the lineup, conditioning is the last step towards having the no-contact jersey removed and him joining full practice. Given Andrighetto was struggling badly to catch his breath at times, it would appear he’s still not quite there yet.
• Just an observation here but the team was significantly looser this morning than in their lead up to the game against Calgary. They had more of an edge to them before that and today seemed a lot more relaxed. Just one man’s opinion here. It will be interesting to see how the game unfolds.
• Erik Johnson’s gear was back in his old locker today, a locker that two days ago was used by Duncan Siemens. Now, Siemens is across the room and Johnson’s familiar stall is back to being his. It doesn’t really mean much of anything but if Johnson weren’t participating in any on-ice activities, his gear wouldn’t be in there. I find these little things interesting.