There's always something with the Avalanche, isn't there?
Coach Patrick Roy has told reporters that leading scorer Matt Duchene sustained a knee injury in Wednesday's game in Vancouver and won't play Friday against Calgary in the Avalanche's second game of their three-game road trip.
Here are the GAME NOTES.
Roy said Duchene, who has 29 goals and 56 points in 71 games, is day to day, which could mean anything.
"We hope he will be able to recover pretty fast," Roy said.
No kidding. The Avalanche lead Minnesota by one point for the second wild card playoff position in the Western Conference, and both teams have 11 games remaining; the Wild are idle Friday with a home game Saturday against Carolina and a road game Sunday against Chicago.
The Avalanche end their road trip Sunday in Edmonton, when suspended captain Gabriel Landeskog will return to the lineup.
Roy said the Avalanche will dress 11 forwards -- that's all they have, not counting Duchene and Landeskog -- and seven defensemen.
John Mitchell, who has one assist in 10 games and seven points (one goal, six assists) in the past 36 games, will replace Duchene with Mikhail Grigorenko and Jarome Iginla, at least at the start. No telling how long that will last.
The good news: defenseman Chris Bigras has been cleared to play and will be in the lineup against the Flames after missing four games because of a concussion.
Here's the Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Mikhail Grigorenko - John Mitchell - Jarome Iginla Mikkel Boedker - Nathan MacKinnon - Blake Comeau Shawn Matthias - Carl Soderberg - Andreas Martinsen Cody McLeod - Jack Skille
DEFENSE Francois Beauchemin - Erik Johnson Nick Holden - Tyson Barrie Eric Gelinas - Chris Bigras Andrew Bodnarchuk
GOALIES Semyon Varlamov Calvin Pickard