The bad news: star Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon is expected to miss 1-2 weeks with a lower-body injury.
The good news: stud rookie defenseman Cale Makar will play Wednesday against the New York Rangers at the Pepsi Center after missing five games with an upper-body injury.
MacKinnon, the NHL’s fifth-leading scorer with 93 points (35 goals, 58 assists) in 69 games, was injured in the second period Monday in the Avalanche’s 3-1 loss in Los Angeles.
"Every team is going through a certain amount of injuries," coach Jared Bednar said after the morning skate. "I think you can always count on having one or two, and you're hoping to be healthy. Just the number of guys that we have out, the guys who play key roles for us, it's getting to be a lot, but hopefully we've got some reinforcements coming soon. We'll definitely see guys (return) on this homestand."
The first of those will be Makar, who hasn’t played since Feb. 29 at Nashville.
“I'm super excited to be back," he said. “Obviously you don't want to miss games at this point in the season. I'm just excited to just get out there and hopefully play a good one tonight."
Makar is second in the league in scoring among rookies with 47 points (12 goals, 35 assists).
Forwards Andre Burakovsky, (upper body), Matt Calvert (lower body), Nazem Kadri (lower body), Mikko Rantanen (upper body) and Colin Wilson (lower body) also remain out, along with goalie Philipp Grubauer (lower body).
Rantanen, Burakovsky, Kadri and Calvert took part in the morning skate while wearing no-contact jerseys, and Grubauer faced some shots before the skate, but Bednar didn’t offer updates on their status.
"It’s been tough with all the injuries, but like we’ve talked about over the last few weeks, it’s been next guy up,… said J.T. Compher, who will center the top line. “So many different guys are stepping up and finding a way over the last month or so to get results. We just have to keep playing the right way and playing together."
The projected lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog -- J.T. Compher -- Vladislav Namestnikov Valeri Nichushkin -- Tyson Jost -- Joonas Donskoi Matt Nieto -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Martin Kaut Logan O’Connor -- Vladislav Kamenev
DEFENSE Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson Ian Cole -- Nikita Zadorov Mark Barberio
GOALIES Pavel Francouz Michael Hutchinson