Avalanche star rookie defenseman Cale Makar didn’t scrimmage at the Pepsi Center on Sunday after leaving practice the previous day for undisclosed reasons.
"I can't say anything about Cale except that he was not fit to practice," coach Jared Bednar said Saturday.
Bednar didn’t address the media Sunday, but teams are not permitted to disclose player injuries or illnesses as part of the NHL’s Return to Play plan.
The Avalanche will practice Monday and are off Tuesday.
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Mikko Rantanen scored the only goal in a shootout to give Team Burgundy a 3-2 win against Team White.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, who fed Matt Calvert for a shorthanded tip-in goal for Team Burgundy, has been a valuable addition after spending the two previous seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Centering the fourth line with Calvert (who moved around quite a bit because of injuries) and Matt Nieto, Bellemare set career highs for goals (nine), assists (13) and points (22) in 69 games.
Bellemare won 53 percent of his faceoffs and led the team in takeaways with 53. He killed penalties and scored two shorthanded goals; the Avalanche were 13th in the league (81.4 percent) on the PK.
“We’re pretty consistent with each other, we understand the way each other plays,… said Bellemare, who went to the Stanley Cup Final with Vegas in 2017-18, the team’s first NHL season. “We kind of try to get one step ahead of the game by understanding the other guys' play. It's really simple when all three guys think the same way, and together now playing with Calvy and Nietsy, they are some of the most skilled guys I've played with on the fourth line.
“That's also changed the game for me this year because there is not a shift where those guys are going to be satisfied to just play a checking shift. They are going to want to create, want to produce, try to create momentum. So that's maybe one of the biggest differences with some of the lines I've played with before is that we've been known to be just a solid checking line against the top line and be physical and everything.
“But with Nietsy and Calvy, I feel like we are creating more offense than people are expecting from us just because there is a little bit more skill with those two guys for sure."