Avalanche defender Devon Toews expected to miss at least another five games

With the list of injured players growing for the Colorado Avalanche, the team released an update on defender Devon Toews. The team’s top pairing defender underwent an MRI Monday and while no serious injury was revealed, Toews is expected to be out of the lineup for at last another 7 to 10 days.

Toews got hurt when he blocked a point shot last Thursday night against the San Jose Sharks. It was originally thought that he may have broken a bone in his foot - an injury that would have kept him out of the lineup for multiple weeks. While the news isn’t great, it could have been a lot worse

He has already missed the team’s last two games and if the new timeline holds, he will be out of the lineup for at least another five.

After splitting two games in Minnesota over the weekend, the Avalanche return home for two more against the Wild before heading back on the road for two against the St. Louis Blues.

After being acquired by the Avalanche in a trade with the New York Islanders this past offseason, Toews quickly signed a new four year $16.4m contract. Early in his tenure in Colorado, Toews has more than lived up to the new deal. Playing on the team’s top pair along side Cale Makar, Toews had quickly turned into the team’s work horse before getting hurt. He was contributing at both ends of the ice and paired with Makar, the duo was quickly becoming one of the best in the NHL. Toews has three goals and two assists through his first six games in burgundy and blue.

Toews is just one of many Avalanche players who have been forced out of the lineup with injuries. Pavel Francouz, Matt Calver, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Erik Johnson were all out of the lineup indefinitely when superstar Nathan MacKinnon left Sunday’s game with a mysterious injury. The team had today off so there has been no update on MacKinnon’s condition but if he misses any time, it’s going to be very tough on the Avalanche.

After last season was derailed by a string of serious injuries, Avalanche fans are starting to worry that history might repeat itself.

As for the salary cap, the Avalanche did a little gymnastics today swapped Hunter Miska ($725K) and Jacob MacDonald ($725K) for Adam Werner ($842.5K) and Shane Bowers ($925K), bringing them to $1.8K Projected Cap Space. A perfect spot for a team to accrue cap savings from the LTIR pool. Also, after playing with only 17 skaters last game, if the Avs only have 17 healthy skaters for tomorrow’s game they can now use the Roster Emergency Exception to add a player to the roster with a Cap Hit < $1M. That player will not count towards the cap. This means they can get Kiefer Sherwood back in the lineup.