The hits just keep coming.
The already injury-riddled Avalanche lost star center Nathan MacKinnon to a lower-body injury Monday in their 3-1 loss in Los Angeles.
The team didn’t practice or have availability Tuesday, so we won’t know how serious the injury is until Wednesday at the morning skate. The Avalanche play the New York Rangers at the Pepsi Center Wednesday night to open a four-game homestand.
Here is the NHL.com GAME RECAP
MacKinnon, the league’s fourth-leading scorer with 93 points (35 goals, 58 assists) in 69 games, was injured in the second period and didn’t return.
Coach Jared Bednar said Tuesday morning that MacKinnon would be re-evaluated when the team returned to Denver.
“It may not be that serious,… he said during his weekly interview with Altitude Sports Radio. “That’s what we’re hoping for, but he’s going to be checked out and obviously we have to see what he feels like today.
“We have a lot of guys that are kind of battling those little injuries right now. It’s that time of year, you look at the schedule and the amount of games we’re playing, we’ve been trying to give them as much rest as we possibly can, just go game days only, day off in-between. Especially with all the injuries we have we’re just trying to manage everyone’s minutes and give them as much rest as possible. Injuries are starting to pile up, so hopefully we’re going to get some guys back here this week.
"We have a lot of those guys skating back in Denver. Hopefully we should have some guys joining us here for Wednesday morning’s skate. Guys that have been on the ice, we’ll get them in for some contact with the group, even if that’s a morning skate. We’ll do whatever we can to try and speed up the process and get them going here as fast as we can.…
The Avalanche have been without forwards Mikko Rantanen (upper body), Nazem Kadri (lower body), Andre Burakovsky (lower body), Matt Calvert (lower body) and Colin Wilson (lower body), along with defenseman Cale Makar (upper body) and goalie Philipp Grubauer (lower body).
Bednar said Monday night that rookie Martin Kaut wasn’t allowed to play because he was called up from the Eagles on an emergency basis when it was possible that Vladislav Namestnikov wouldn’t feel well enough to dress. Namestnikov played, so Kaut was scratched.