Avs morning skate notebook: Work ethic must improve

Avs and Predators tonight, a rematch of the fun playoff series last spring. It seems like about two weeks since that game Saturday against the Canucks, so I’m curious to see how the Avs come out tonight. They should come out with plenty of energy, one would think, but long layoffs generally aren’t good for hockey teams.

Some lineup stuff:

No Tyson Jost, no Sven Andrighetto, no J.T. Compher.

The news is encouraging on Jost and Sven 10 though; both skated this morning with regular jerseys on. But Jared Bednar wants to give them a bit more skating and practice time before inserting them back in the  lineup. Wouldn’t surprise me if they are in the lineup Friday in Winnipeg.

Mark Barberio will be the scratch on defense.  Semyon Varlamov in goal.

I think, to sum up what Bednar thinks has been going wrong of late, he thinks the forwards and defense have been a bit too gapped out from each other, especially coming back into the defensive zone. But Bednar essentially said the loss Saturday in Vancouver was mostly on goalie Philipp Grubauer, who just couldn’t stop anything.

Bednar was NOT happy with his team’s work ethic in Calgary. He is really going to start cracking down, if he hasn’t already, on stuff like that. The one thing this Avs team still can’t afford to have is a complacent, “We’re pretty good, aren’t we?” attitude. Because they’re just not on that overall talent level yet, 1-18.

I don’t think the injuries have helped at all, either. I think the loss of Compher, particularly, has hurt the team a lot. And, there is no word on when he might be back. Nothing. I think the Avs really miss his versatility and speed, even though the Avs have gotten more secondary scoring of late.

I think this obviously will be a very tough game tonight, but a winnable one if they just put their work boots on. This team has to get that underdog mentality back a bit, in my opinion. Friday night and Sunday’s games are going to be tough enough, on the road again in Canada. They need to treat this game like a late-season, hugely important one if they don’t want to start sliding back toward .500-level mediocrity.