I guess the good news regarding Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen’s lower-body injury is that coach Jared Bednar is optimistic that the star right wing won’t be out too long.

“He’s week to week with a lower-body (injury),” Bednar said after practice Wednesday. “I should know more early next week -- Tuesday, Wednesday. Just see how he progresses over the next few days I think is the big thing. I can tell you I don’t think it’s going to be a four-to-six-week injury, I’ll give you that.

“We’re hoping he’s going to be back significantly sooner than that, but we’re just going to have to watch it and see how he’s feeling in a couple days and what type of workouts he’s going to be able to do and just see how he responds to some of the extra work he gets off the ice to start and then on the ice as well.”

Rantanen was injured Monday in St. Louis when he appeared to toe-pick his left skate into the ice on his first shift in the second period. He’s tied with linemate Nathan MacKinnon for the team scoring lead with 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in nine games.

“You lose a guy in the middle of the game and he leaves, your mind starts thinking the worst,” Bednar said. “As of now, to be reevaluating him again early next week and see how he responds to some of the treatment and whatnot, I think it’s a positive for sure.

"We’re at the point in the season where we want him to come back fully healthy. We don’t want him to be out too long either, so there’s going to be a little bit of a balance there.”

Bednar said he hasn’t decided who will move into Rantanen’s spot on the top line with MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog. He said J.T. Compher, Tyson Jost and Joonas Donskoi are options.

“You lose players, especially any top players, it can be a little bit nerve-wracking for a team, but I certainly feel good about where we’re at with the depth and the way some of our guys are playing,” Bednar said. “There’s going to be more opportunity for a number of guys to help fill in for Mikko.

“I haven’t made that decision. We’re contemplating a couple different guys. We may see some movement in that position just to see who we like. I’d like to leave the lines as much as I can the same with some of the success we’ve been having, but certainly when you lose a guy like Mikko things have to shuffle.”

Here’s MacKinnon, who has at least one point in each of the first nine games for the second season in a row, on Rantanen's injury:

“It sucks,” he said. “He's one of the best players in the NHL. When you lose one of the best players in the NHL, it's tough. We're not going to replace him. He got hurt last year and we found a way to get some wins. Hopefully we can weather the storm until he gets back. Mikko is a freak. He'll be back, I'm sure, sooner than later. We need to step up, including myself.”

Here’s Landeskog:

“We’ve dealt with this before, other guys have been hurt," he said. "It’s a team game, it’s not a one-man show. We know how important Mikko is for us, no doubt, but that’s why we have depth on this team.”

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Aside from Rantanen, Compher, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Ian Cole didn’t practice Wednesday. Bednar said they were given maintenance days.

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Bednar said he’s going to “look at” splitting up the Cale Makar-Nikita Zadorov defense pair, perhaps pair Cole with Makar, who is in his first NHL regular season.

“We’re not seeing as much as we’d like to see from either one of them or as a pair,” he said. “I want to give support to Cale in a couple different areas, having an experienced guy.”

Bednar said the Avalanche in general need to get better communicating with each other on the ice.



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