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MacKinnon update to come Friday

March 4, 2021, 6:22 PM ET [1 Comments]
Rick Sadowski
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSSArchiveCONTACT
There won’t be an update on Nathan MacKinnon’s status until Friday morning, I was told by the Avalanche on Thursday, so we can only hope he’s OK.

The star center was injured at 8:08 of the third period Wednesday in the Avalanche’s 4-0 win at SAP Center in San Jose on a hit to the head by Sharks rookie Joachim Blichfeld.

MacKinnon went down and stayed on the ice momentarily and had a bloody mouth as he was escorted to the locker room.

Blichfeld, who made his season debut, was assessed a match penalty and on Thursday had a hearing with the NHL Player Safety Department.

Here is my NHL.com GAME RECAP.



Coach Jared Bednar and captain Gabriel Landeskog after the game said that MacKinnon seemed to be doing OK. The Avalanche stayed overnight and flew home Thursday.



“I think we got lucky on it,” Bednar said. “Hopefully he’s feeling good and everything, but as of right now he seems to be fine.”

Said Landeskog: “Not going to comment on that hit too much. Nate seems like he’s doing OK. The refs did a good job of reviewing it and made the right call. I’m sure the disciplinary guys — the league — will take a look at it and assess the situation.”

It was a nice bounce-back game for the Avalanche and goalie Philipp Grubauer, who made 26 saves for his third shutout of the season -- second against the Sharks -- and 14th of his NHL career after he allowed five goals on 26 shots Monday in a 6-2 loss in San Jose.

Mikko Rantanen (two goals, two assists) and Landeskog (one goal, three assists) led the offense while the Avalanche did an excellent job of limiting the Sharks’ scoring chances while playing without the injured Cale Makar, Bowen Byram and Matt Calvert.

The Avalanche have a 12-7-1 record and 25 points, just one fewer point than they had last season through 20 games when they were 12-6-2.

They should be able to build on this while playing at Ball Arena for the next nine games starting with a back-to-back on Friday and Saturday against Anaheim. They have 15 more games this month, 13 at home.

"I think we had a really good, productive meeting this morning and watched some video like we always do, and we opened up the room and had a good conversation and that was needed at this point in the season," Landeskog said. "I mean, we weren't so worried about tonight -- we had a good feeling that we were all going to play well tonight -- but it's just about what we do on Friday and what we do on Saturday and what we do game after game moving forward, and it's a good test for our team.

“We know every single team is going to play their best against us, and we are not going to get any easy matchups. Happy with the way we responded tonight. We will rest up and get ready for this weekend."



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