The Avalanche will play its first game Tuesday night in Columbus since clinching a playoff berth and its first since center Matt Duchene sustained a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee that will keep him out of the lineup for about four weeks.
The Avalanche will use the eight remaining regular-season games to try and nail down second place in the Central Division while preparing for the postseason. Colorado has 100 points while third-place Chicago has 99 points and six games to go; the Blackhawks' next game is Thursday at home against Minnesota.
"We've had quite a few injuries with lots of guys going down, but we have players who are able to step up and fill roles, and that just filters through the lineup," said John Mitchell, who will play right wing on a line with Gabriel Landeskog and Paul Stastny. "Everybody knows that if guys go down their role's going to get bumped up a little bit and get more ice time."
Mitchell filled in for Duchene in Saturday's 3-2 win against San Jose, anchoring the injured center's line with Ryan O'Reilly and Jamie McGinn after missing the previous four games because of a back injury. He scored the winning goal on a power play and added an assist.
"It's obviously tough to fill someone's role like Dutchie's," said Mitchell, who has four goals and three assists in his past six games. "There's an instant shock, but you can't dwell on something like that. You have to get past it. We have games to win and we want to finish off the regular season well and go into the playoffs and make a statement and go deep.
"We're going to get players back if we make a run. We'll get some key guys back that'll help the lineup. We've made the playoffs now and we want to strive for home-ice advantage. These are big games for us."
Rookie Nathan MacKinnon will slide into Duchene's usual spot on the line with O'Reilly and McGinn. O'Reilly said MacKinnon is "pretty similar" to Duchene in that he has plenty of speed.
"He's skilled like Dutchie too," O'Reilly said. "Hopefully we'll use our speed and work hard and the right things will happen out there."
Semyon Varlamov will start in goal against the Blue Jackets and fellow Russian Olympic teammate Sergei Bobrovsky, and again Thursday against the New York Rangers at the Pepsi Center.
This is a big game for the Blue Jackets, who are eighth in the Eastern Conference and hanging onto the second wild-card playoff spot with 82 points and eight games to play. They're two points behind seventh-place Detroit, one ahead of ninth-place Washington and two in front of 10th-place Toronto.
Here's the Avalanche lineup (Andre Benoit, Reto Berra and -- no surprise -- Ryan Wilson will be scratched):
FORWARDS Ryan O'Reilly - Nathan MacKinnon - Jamie McGinn Gabriel Landeskog - Paul Stastny - John Mitchell Cody McLeod - Marc-Andre Cliche - Max Talbot Paul Carey - Brad Malone - Patrick Bordeleau
DEFENSE Jan Hejda -- Erik Johnson Nate Guenin - Tyson Barrie Nick Holden - Cory Sarich
GOALIES Semyon Varlamov Jean-Sebastien Giguere