Morning Flurries: Avalanche preparing to hit the road

Before a scheduled early morning flight today to Toronto the Colorado Avalanche held one final practice in Denver yesterday with updates on those players who may be able to participate in any of the next upcoming five away games.

The biggest news of the day was Nathan MacKinnon as a full-participant in the practice but head coach Jared Bednar said he hasn’t been officially cleared yet. Still, good news and all indications are for his probable return Wednesday night at the Scotiabank Arena.

In other news related to injuries Ryan Murray is out indefinitely after tweaking something in his lower body and presumably will not be part of the trip. Goaltender Pavel Francouz continues to progress and is going to force some roster decisions especially as the Avalanche are currently using his salary for LTIR cap relief. He looks to be heading to the AHL first for a conditioning assignment, which would give him some much-needed game action before making any final roster decisions as both he and fellow netminder Jonas Johansson require waivers to get officially sent to the minors. The team may also need to recall a Colorado Eagle or two prior to takeoff as currently Kurtis MacDermid is their only healthy extra player. Martin Kaut was also deemed healthy and sent to the Eagles yesterday.

After another dominant stretch of games Cale Makar received league-wide recognition yet again as he was named the third star of the week for the second consecutive week, which has only been given to an Avalanche player once before.

During the week Makar was able to extend his goal streak to five games which was unfortunately snapped against Nashville but he ended the month on an incredible run of 1.75 points per game. Makar now leads the league in goals from defensemen with nine and is tied for third in scoring as well as first in points per game with 1.25. Well done, Cale and can’t wait to see what’s next in an already impressive career.