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Avs morning skate notebook: Kerfoot back, and Conor Timmins update

December 19, 2018

Hello from the Pepsi Center, where YOUR Colorado Avalanche will try to stop this little slide tonight against the Montreal Canadiens.

First, some lineup info: Alexander Kerfoot is back in. He’ll skate on the fourth line, however. I’m not sure whether it’s Gabriel Bourque or Sheldon Dries who will be the scratch with Kerfoot returning. Somehow, that escaped me this morning, that piece of information, sorry. The second line will stay Andrighetto-Jost-Compher. Personally, I think Kerfoot should be there instead of Andrighetto, but that’s just me.

Philipp Grubauer in goal tonight. I talked some with him. I asked if he’s one of those goalies who doesn’t like if teammates try to block a lot of shots. Some goalies don’t. Patrick Roy never did. He wanted to see the puck the whole way, and would get mad at his D-men who tried to block too many. But Grubauer said he wants his D to try and block as many as they can. I am including the audio at the end of this so you can hear it from his own mouth.

One thing I asked Grubi about as well: the bad penalty killing of late. While Grubi put some of the blame on himself and presumably Semyon Varlamov for not making enough saves, one thing he said essentially was: if you want better penalty killing, stop taking so many penalties.

The Avs are currently tied with two other teams for second in the league in average penalty minutes taken per game (10.1). That number needs to improve. Opponents are taking an average of 9.6 penalty minutes per game against the Avs.

As far as Conor Timmins goes: He skated again today. Bednar said the plan for him is this: keep skating up to the winter break, then he’ll go home for a few days (all players are mandated to get Dec. 24-26 off), then when he comes back, start making some real decisions on his next step, which presumably would be to start off with the Colorado Eagles.