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Colorado Avalanche Get a Little Lucky with Injury Bug

By Nadia Archuleta

DENVER, COLORADO - NOVEMBER 27: Goaltender Philipp Grubauer #31 of the Colorado Avalanche warms up prior to the game against the Edmonton Oilers at the Pepsi Center on November 27, 2019 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images)
DENVER, COLORADO - NOVEMBER 27: Goaltender Philipp Grubauer #31 of the Colorado Avalanche warms up prior to the game against the Edmonton Oilers at the Pepsi Center on November 27, 2019 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Michael Martin/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Colorado Avalanche might be relatively close to being a healthy team. They may have dodged a bullet with some injuries.

The Colorado Avalanche are an injured team, make no mistake. They currently have two regular-roster players on injured reserve. Erik Johnson is week-to-week, and Colin Wilson is out indefinitely.

In addition to those two players, they keep getting banged up. Center Nazem Kadri has been out since the December 4 game in Toronto. He’s missed two games so far, and he’s not playing tonight. He was at morning skate in no-contact red.

His injury is reported as lower body, day-to-day.

Meanwhile, Philipp Grubauer left the Boston game early on, so that Pavel Francouz had to take over goal tending duties. He was around morning skate today and a full participant:

However, Pavel Francouz will start in net tonight. What’s more, though Grubauer said he was “ready to go,” the Colorado Avalanche have recalled goalie Adam Werner from Loveland to sit as backup tonight.

Ok, the injury news everyone wants concerns our star rookie, Cale Makar. The hit that rat (hey, it’s his nickname) Brad Marchand laid on him was clean but scary:

You see Makar both shaking his head and favoring his left arm. Neither one of those signals what would be an easy injury to bounce back from.

Well, the Avs have caught what appears to be a break. Makar was supposed to undergo some medical testing to determine how bad his injury is. As of right now, his upper-body injury has him listed as “day-to-day.”

That’s welcome news, of some sort. It means he probably doesn’t have a broken bone or a dislocated joint. The fear of concussion is still there because that rat’s shoulder did hit Makar’s head.

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A word of caution: Day-to-day can turn into week-to-week. Johnson actually finished the game after incurring his injury.

Nonetheless, the coaching staff did say they had some confidence that Makar might even play this week. Besides tonight’s game, Colorado is hosting Philadelphia on Wednesday and New Jersey on Friday.

Meanwhile, speaking of Johnson, he’s making progress. He may even start skating this week.

Finally, Matt Calvert will be back in the lineup tonight. He missed the game in Boston because he was in Manitoba attending his grandmother’s funeral. Condolences to Matt.

Anyway, with Calvert back in the lineup, the team sent TJ Tynan back to the Eagles to make room for Werner. Tynan had to clear waivers first, which he did. During morning skate, Calvert skated on Jost’s line with Vladislav Kamenev as the other winger.

Next. Would the Loss of Makar be One Blow Too Many?. dark

Right now, the Colorado Avalanche are relatively close to being healthy. Except for Wilson, no player is really out long-term — that we know of. Hey, with the way injuries have been going this season, that qualifies as pretty close to good news.

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