Avalanche coach Patrick Roy decided to cancel a scheduled practice Wednesday, instead allowing players to do off-ice workouts. They'll be back on the ice Thursday morning to prepare for that night's game against the New York Islanders at the Pepsi Center.

The only real news is that center Jesse Winchester still isn't ready to start playing and forward Dennis Everberg has been recalled from Lake Erie in the AHL. Winchester skated for two days without a non-contact jersey in drills with the team before Wednesday. He's recovering from the concussion he sustained in a preseason game in Calgary.

"There's some good days, there's some bad days," Roy said of Winchester. "He's going to continue to work with the process. We're not going to push on him. We're going to follow the protocol and make sure that he's a hundred percent when he comes back. We're never going to force our players to come back and certainly not going to push them to come back either. The thing that's very important with this organization is when a player comes back, he's a hundred percent. He still has some symptoms here and there."

Everberg began the season with the Avalanche and had no points in five games. He had two goals and one assist in five games with Lake Erie.

*****

I asked Roy if Nathan MacKinnon is pressing, trying to do too much in search of that elusive first goal. He had four shots in 17:47 of playing time Tuesday in the Avalanche's 3-2 shootout loss to San Jose and has taken 28 shots in 10 games.

"I thought he had a great game yesterday," Roy said. "When we take a scoring chance for and against, he was our best forward. He was plus-4. I think this is positive. If you said to me after 10 games Nate would have zero goals, I would never believe that. Unfortunately it is what it is. Now it's trying to build around yesterday's game. I thought he did a lot of good things. He looked more comfortable out there, he started skating."

*****

Roy said the Avalanche's biggest problem is game management, or lack of it, at critical times. If it had been better against the Sharks, he suggested, the Avalanche would have taken advantage of goalie Semyon Varlamov's 49-save performance and stolen a win.

The Avalanche are 2-4-4 on the season with a 1-0-3 record in the past four games.

"I think the area where we're learning the most right now because we're struggling to score goals every night is our game management," he said. "Pinching at the wrong time, 'D' jumping in the rush, losing pucks at the boards at key moments in periods ... I think that makes us a better team right now. If you score four or five goals those little mistakes you don't see them as much.

"When you're not scoring and you have to win the 2-1 game ... I remember Mike Keane saying, 'When you're playing bad it doesn't mean you have to lose the game.' Yesterday was a good example. Varly is allowed to steal a game for us. To us, he's one of the best goaltenders if not the best goaltender in the game and we have to take advantage of it. Now because our game management is sometimes not there instead of winning 2-1, we're losing 3-2. There's nothing wrong going through some adversity right now. I think it's part of the process."



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