Erik Johnson won’t play Wednesday against Edmonton at the Pepsi Center when the Avalanche attempt to end a two-game losing streak.
GAME NOTES
Calle Rosen will make his Avalanche debut in place of Johnson, who will miss at least three games with an upper-body injury. The Avalanche play in Chicago on Friday and face the Blackhawks again at home Saturday.
Johnson was injured last Saturday on the hit by Toronto’s
Alexander Kerfoot, who was assessed a two-game suspension Monday by the NHL Player Safety Department for boarding.
Johnson did some skating Tuesday, but coach
Jared Bednar said after the morning skate Wednesday that the defenseman wasn’t feeling well.
“We won’t see him for the next handful of games,” Bednar said. “I think (originally saying) day-to-day was hopeful. He tried it yesterday on the ice. Things went OK, but he doesn’t feel great today. We’re going to shut him down for a little bit and let him get healthy.
“It’s that time of year, no use pushing it and making it worse. He’ll get tonight off and he won’t play on the weekend and then they’ll re-evaluate from there.”
Bednar also said that the plan for forward
Mikko Rantanen is to return from his ankle injury on Saturday rather than Friday.
“I think it’ll be Saturday,” Bednar said. “He won’t go on the trip. Jumping him back into his first game and playing in a back-to-back in a day and a half is probably not the best idea, so we’ll give him the extra time and hopefully he’s ready to go for Saturday rested and fully recovered, feeling really confident in his leg.”
Rantanen was injured Oct. 21 against St. Louis. He skated again Wednesday, as did captain
Gabriel Landeskog, who hasn’t played since Oct. 26 against Anaheim because of a lower-body injury.
“He started out with a light skate yesterday, it got heavier today,” Bednar said. “He’s in a similar situation to what we’re seeing out of Mikko. We play tonight, we’ll be leaving tomorrow and he won’t be coming with us.
“He will continue to skate and I’m hoping early next week that he can start maybe getting in with the group for a little bit with a non-contact jersey and advance as quickly as we can based on the way he’s feeling and just see where it goes.”
Forwards
Matt Calvert (head) and
Colin Wilson (lower-body injury) also remain out.
The lineup:
FORWARDS
Andre Burakovsky -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Joonas Donskoi
Tyson Jost -- Nazem Kadri -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Valeri Nichushkin
Logan O’Connor -- Vladislav Kamenev -- T.J. Tynan
DEFENSE
Nikita Zadorov – Cale Makar
Samuel Girard – Calle Rosen
Ryan Graves -- Ian Cole
GOALIES
Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz
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