Good news, bad news for the Avalanche:
Defenseman Erik Johnson, who has missed 23 games to recover from knee surgery, didn't accompany the Avalanche Sunday for their three-game road trip that begins Monday in Calgary. He took part in drills early in practice while wearing a red non-contact jersey and left before practice ended.
Forward Jesse Winchester, who hasn't played at all since sustaining a concussion in a Sept. 30 preseason game in Calgary, is on the trip and might play against the Flames if all goes well in the morning skate.
Coach Patrick Roy said Johnson will continue to skate while the team is away. He said Johnson needs more practice time with the team and with three games in four nights -- the Avalanche play in Edmonton on Wednesday and in Vancouver on Thursday -- there won't be much time for practices on the trip.
"This was his first day practicing with the team," Roy said. "He did a couple drills and he said he felt good. I was hoping he might play on this trip, but we're going to push him a little bit for him to practice more with the team. There won't be too many practices on the road trip. We're probably going to start (practicing) on the two home games we're going to have after the trip."
The Avalanche have a two-game homestand Saturday with Buffalo and March 30 against Edmonton.
The Avalanche (33-26-12) have gone 13-8-2 without Johnson, who has 12 goals and 11 assists in 47 games.
Winchester, 31, signed a two-year, $1.8 million contract as a free agent on July 1. He had nine goals and nine assists in 52 games last season with Florida and was expected to skate on the fourth line. That's where he'll be Monday or whenever he makes his Avalanche debut.
"He said he had a good practice today," Roy said. "He'll do the morning skate and we'll see after. If he's capable and feels good enough to play, we'll re-evaluate and make the decision if he's going to play or not. For a player that hasn't played all year ... we'll see how it goes in the morning before making any statement here. Let's see how he does in the morning skate and we'll go from there."
Forward Joey Hishon also practiced Sunday and said that his neck and elbow are fine. He's missed the past five games. The Avalanche will have two extra forwards on the trip with Winchester aboard.
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The Avalanche have gone 3-0-1 in the past four games, 6-1-1 in eight and 11-4-1 in 16, yet they still trail Winnipeg by eight points for the second wild card playoff spot in the West and are behind 30-24 in regulation and overtime wins, the tiebreaker.
The Avalanche have 11 games left, the Jets 10. But while the Avalanche are playing the Flames on Monday, the Jets will be in Edmonton.
"I'm so proud of this group and I think the coaching staff is too," Matt Duchene said. "There's a lot of teams that would have looked at a seven-point gap a month ago and rolled over and died. 'Let's just fast-forward to the summer.' I've been on teams that didn't have the character to get through that, but we've stayed right there. We're not going to stop until we're either in or out."