Some bad news for the Avalanche:
While goalie
Pavel Francouz remains out with a lower-body injury, coach
Jared Bednar said Wednesday that forward
Matt Calvert will be out indefinitely with an upper-body injury.
“I don’t really have a timeline on him,” Bednar said of Calvert, who didn’t play Tuesday in the Avalanche’s 7-3 win against San Jose. “It’s very similar to Frankie with his injury. I don’t know when he’s going to be back.
Here’s the
NHL.com RECAP of the Avalanche’s 7-3 win Tuesday.
Calvert, who has one assist in six games, apparently was injured Sunday in the Avalanche’s 3-1 loss in Anaheim. He has been playing right wing on the fourth line and is one of the team’s best penalty killers.
Kiefer Sherwood took Calvert’s spot with left wing
Tyson Jost and
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare on Tuesday and had an assist.
Calvert, 31, has had a number of concussions in his 11-season NHL career and has been wearing a pink tinted visor this season to help filter the bright lights in arenas that can cause problems.
Calvert missed all seven games of the Avalanche’s Western Conference semifinal series with Dallas because of concussion-related issues.
Francouz has yet to play a game, so
Philipp Grubauer has started six of the first seven and is expected to start Thursday against San Jose.
The Avalanche are carrying two other goalies,
Hunter Miska, 25, and
Adam Werner, 23. They spent last season with the Colorado Eagles of the AHL. Miska made his first NHL start Jan. 21 in a 4-2 loss to the Los Angeles Kings when he stopped 23 of 26 shots. Werner is on the taxi squad.
“Grubi is obviously carrying the bulk of the load, and that’s fine,” Bednar said. “We have the ability with three goalies that we can use for days off from practices to make sure that he’s rested and feeling good.”
Grubauer has a 4-2-0 record with one shutout, a 2.17 goals-against average and .917 save percentage.
“We’ll give Miska some games and see how it goes, play it by ear and take it probably not day to day but week to week and see how this all plays out,” Bednar said. “We don’t have the final answer on that just yet.”
The Avalanche play Minnesota four times in six days after Thursday, including back-to-back games Saturday and Sunday in St. Paul.
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