Off-day Playoff Avs Notebook: Reinforcements coming?

A bit of a lag today for me getting stuff up and running here, so apologies for that. Playoffs are a busy time, as I’m coming to know again. It used to be de rigeur, working this time of year back in the day. But, yeah, it’s been a while since those glory days.

So, Avalanche news out of Tuesday:

• Sam Girard may play Wednesday night in Game 4. He skated for a “full” practice, albeit in a non-contact jersey. Avs say he has an upper-body injury, but he was handling and shooting pucks regularly, so that’s a good sign. I won’t make any firm predictions either way, but the vibe I got was that things sound encouraging he’ll be able to go for Game 4. We won’t know until the morning at the earliest, though.

Here is video of the Lieutenant out there today:

• Only 10 skaters took part in the optional practice. Guys who play regularly mostly just take treatment and/or rest up on off days. They’ll usually all participate in the morning skate on days of games, but not always.
• If you missed this story yesterday, here it is again: The Avs and their AHL coach, Eric Veilleux, have parted ways. The Avs have a vacancy for a very important job.
• I asked Bednar today about Mikko Rantanen’s play so far. To me, he’s looked a little off offensively, misfiring on a lot of shots, looking a little tentative, especially on the power play. Bednar sort-of said he started the series off a little slow, but thinks he’s gotten better. I guess so, but I feel like Rants needs to up his game quite a bit if the Avs are to have a real shot at extending this series deep.
• A common theme in the Avs’ locker room today was “We can’t be goaded into responding too much to Nashville’s chippy play.” We’ve already seen in this series what responding to anything P.K. Subban does. It puts an Av in the penalty box. Matt Nieto was called for the retaliation jab at Subban in Game 1, and Nathan MacKinnon was sent to the box for grabbing his leg a little after a sucker punch from behind. Reporters asked Subban about that punch to MacKinnon, and his response was “I’d do it again next game.” Gotta love playoff hockey, right?
• I don’t think the Avs should just sit there and take it, though. They can’t be bullied around by the Preds. I don’t think that’s happened at all in this series, but if Nathan MacKinnon gets sucker-punched again, I think the Avs have to do something to make them think twice from doing it again. I guess that’s going against what the Avs’ players are saying they must avoid, though, huh? That’s why I would probably be a liability if I ever played on a real hockey team. I’d be trying to even scores all night and probably be in the box, putting my team down a man.
• I’ll have some good locker-room uncut audio posting a little later, including an interesting little talk I had with backup goalie Andrew Hammond. He’s been kind of a forgotten man all year, but he’s one Jonathan Bernier injury away from being the Avs’ playoff goalie.