Matt Duchene could be in the lineup as early as Thursday when the Avalanche play in Dallas to open a three-game road trip.
Duchene took part in a full contact practice Wednesday and said he felt good after sustaining what he said was his first concussion last Friday on a hit by Winnipeg defenseman Jacob Trouba.
"I'd love to say right now that I'm ready to go for tomorrow, and I feel really good as of right now," he said. "We'll see what the day brings and go from there. It felt good (practicing). I feel better every day. Things kind of settle in as you're healing, you feel better as the day goes on. Today I felt like I was able to be myself out there."
Duchene, who leads the Avalanche in scoring with 11 points (six goals, five assists) in 13 games, centered a makeshift line in practice with left wing Andreas Martinsen and right wing Mikko Rantanen.
Captain Gabriel Landeskog didn't practice -- coach Jared Bednar said he was "dinged up" Tuesday in the Avalanche's 4-1 win against Los Angeles, though he expects him to play against the Stars. Defenseman Patrick Wiercioch didn't practice either but is expected to play.
"We have some question marks, so I can't give you a solid answer on (line combinations) because we don't know about Duchene," Bednar said. "I think Landeskog's going to be good, but we won't know until tomorrow to see how they feel and then we'll kind of sort out our lines ... if all of a sudden Duchene can't go, we'll look more like (Tuesday) night's lineup."
As a precaution, the Avalanche recalled left wing A.J. Greer again from AHL San Antonio. He played well Sunday against Boston in his NHL debut.
But Bednar was encouraged watching Duchene skate, stickhandle and shoot pucks in traffic.
"Matt looked good," Bednar said. "We did some battling at the end of practice and he looked like he was working hard, getting hit, taking hits, giving hits. So now as long as he feels good later today and tomorrow, then he should be a player for us."
Duchene didn't play in the third period and overtime after getting hit by Trouba in the Avalanche's 3-2 win against the Jets.
"I don't think he meant to do it, but I thought it was pretty vicious," Duchene said. "I didn't like the fact that I knew where he was, and he kind of just threw his arm up in desperation. I think it was just an unfortunate reaction, but it caught me on the head, chipped a tooth, knocked a tooth loose as well and obviously it gave me a concussion. So I wasn't too thrilled about that play."
Duchene said he was "shocked" that a penalty wasn't called. "That's all I can really say about it. I had some blurry vision, but he didn't hit me in the eye. He hit me in the chin, on my mouth and obviously did some damage to my teeth."
Duchene said the concussion was his first, and that he didn't experience some of the more common symptoms, such as headaches.
"It's my first one, so I've been trying to navigate through it," he said. "It's been pretty foreign to me, but the trainers have done a good job with me trying to get back. I feel pretty good. The guys did a good job finding that I was concussed. I felt after the second period that something wasn't right, so I went and talked to our trainers. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious one by the looks of things and I hope to get back in there soon."
Duchene skated for the first time Tuesday morning at the Pepsi Center with his teammates before the Avalanche played the Kings. He passed his baseline test in the afternoon and was given the go-ahead to practice Wednesday.
"I feel good right now, we'll see what tomorrow brings," he said. "I've passed the tests, but I think at this point it's just continuing to feel good. These things are weird, right? It's foreign to me because I haven't had one before. We'll just take it hour by hour, day by day, and see how things go tomorrow. So far, things are going well."
The Avalanche went 1-1-0 without Duchene and were having offensive problems even before he was injured. They've scored two goals or fewer in nine of 15 games and been shut out four times.
"Our production's one of the worst in the league, that's something we have to get better at," he said. "We have to bear down. The guys did a really good job getting some gritty ones (Tuesday) night."
The Avalanche hadn't scored as many as four goals in a game since their 4-0 win at Tampa Bay on Oct. 20. They went 0-for-4 on power plays Tuesday, which included a two-man advantage for 40 seconds. They've gone 3-for-29 on power plays in the past eight games.
No surprise that Semyon Varlamov will start in goal Thursday. He's stopped 92 of 96 shots in the past three games.