Avalanche coach Jared Bednar continued to experiment with line combinations during a Thursday scrimmage at the Pepsi Center, the fourth day of training camp.
Nathan MacKinnon centered a line with left wing Andre Burakovsky and right wing Mikko Rantanen for the second day in a row on the Burgundy team.
Captain and left wing Gabriel Landeskog, who spent most of the past few seasons with MacKinnon and Rantanen, skated with center Nazem Kadri and right wing Valeri Nichushkin on the White team.
"We're going to play around with (the second line) a little bit here in training camp,… Bednar said. “I want to make sure I have options that are producing on the offensive side of things, and also options we can use to check and defend other teams' top players.…
Burgundy vs White let's go!!#GoAvsGo pic.twitter.com/yUFA2LiKc1
— x-Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) July 16, 2020
“I’m not there yet, it just depends on how the next week or so of camp goes,… Bednar said. “You have this small window of games – one exhibition game, three round-robin games – that are very meaningful, in my opinion.
“We’re going to let this camp play out and see what type of decisions we may or may not have going into that exhibition game.…
Landeskog said he’s enjoyed skating with Kadri and Nichushkin.
“I liked it,… he said. “It's been a couple of practices now and I thought we had a good scrimmage today and obviously we matched up against Nate, Mikko and Burky, so that's a tough task there. For us, I see us as a line that can be tough to play against, heavy on pucks down low, things like that, create offense, but be very responsible defensively.
“I just think it gets us another look and I think that's probably what the coaching staff is looking for. Depending on matchups and things like that, that's always a good thing to have moving into the playoffs run like this.
“It just gives us another look and obviously I've played a lot with Nate and Mikko in the past, but Val and Naz were having a lot of fun playing together and they're two really high-quality players, so it's fun. Obviously, chemistry doesn't just happen overnight, it's something you have to constantly work on, and I see a lot of potential between the three of us."
The Avalanche will be off Friday and resume practicing Saturday.
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MacKinnon, already a finalist for the Ted Lindsay Award, on Thursday was named a finalist for the Lady Byng Award, which goes to the player “adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.…
The other finalists are St. Louis’ Ryan O’Reilly and Toronto’s Auston Matthews.
MacKinnon, who was fifth in NHL scoring with 93 points (35 goals, 58 assists) in 69 games, had a career-low 12 penalty minutes. Two previous Avalanche players, O’Reilly in 2013-14 and Joe Sakic in 2000-01, won the award.
2019-20 Lady Byng Memorial Trophy finalist: Nathan MacKinnon@Mackinnon9 ranked fifth in the NHL with 35-58—93 while registering a career-low 12 penalty minutes, the second-fewest among the League’s top 25 scorers. https://t.co/JRd3a5BWLY #NHLAwards #NHLStats pic.twitter.com/puBeTn1y92
— NHL Public Relations (@PR_NHL) July 16, 2020
O’Reilly had 61 points (12 goals, 49 assists) in 71 games. He had 10 penalty minutes and was 10th in face-off winning percentage (56.6 percent). Matthews finished third in the scoring with 80 points (47 goals, 33 assists) in 70 games. He had eight penalty minutes.