Morning skate notebook: Changes coming

Jared Bednar will make a relatively bold change to his lineup for tonight’s contest with the Columbus Blue Jackets:

The top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabe Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen will be broken up. Tyson Jost is your new first-line left winger, folks, while Landeskog is your new second-line left wing, on a line with Alexander Kerfoot and J.T. Compher.

I’m not sure I’d look at this as a demotion for Landy as much as it is an attempt by Bednar to just shake things up a bit with his forward group, hoping some change will spur some new offensive chemistry. The Avs have been kind of up and down offensively of late.

But it could be a demotion of sorts too. The fact is, Landy hasn’t been scoring much lately. He’s got only two goals in his last 17 games. Maybe, playing with the pass-first Kerfoot, he’ll get more shooting chances than he’s gotten with Nathan MacKinnon, who is looking for his shot a lot of late, and with good reason.

The other thing that has allowed Bednar to tinker with his lineup, perhaps, is tonight’s return of Sven Andrighetto to the lineup, after missing 27 games. He’ll skate on a fourth line with Gabriel Bourque and Dominic Toninato.

So these are your lines:

Jost-MacKinnon-Rantanen

Landeskog-Kerfoot-Compher

Nieto-Soderberg-Comeau

Andrighetto-Toninato-Bourque

Semyon Varlamov will start in goal. Jonathan Bernier is healthy, but will again serve as the backup. The defensive rotation looks to be the same as it’s been of late.