The Colorado Avalanche will be without star center Nathan MacKinnon for the foreseeable future. On Wednesday, Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar announced that MacKinnon will miss three weeks as a result of a lower-body injury.
MacKinnon suffered the injury in Saturday's 4-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Avalanche star logged 20:40 of ice time and didn't miss a shift throughout the game.
"Coming out of the game it didn't feel the way he wanted it to feel," Bednar said when he was asked about MacKinnon's injury.
This won't be the first action that MacKinnon has missed during the 2021-22 season. MacKinnon missed Colorado's first two regular season games after testing positive for COVID-19.
MacKinnon currently has 10 points (one goal & nine assists) in eight games this season.
The Avalanche have dealt with their fair share of injuries early on this season. The team is slated to get top defenseman Cale Makar (upper-body injury) and forward Valeri Nichushkin (upper-body injury) back in the lineup for Thursday's game against the Vancouver Canucks. In addition, forwards Mikko Rantanen (lower-body injury) and Andre Burakovsky (lower-body injury) and defenseman Devon Toews (undisclosed injury) returned on Saturday.
"The injuries that we've gotten and the guys that are missing time are our key guys, and sometimes that's the way it goes," Bednar added. "We just have to work through it, work out of it, and it's just another little obstacle in our way. Hopefully, Nate can get back and get healthy and come out and play hungry like he always has and make a huge impact. But for now, we're going to do without him."
The Avalanche have struggled out of the gate with a 4-5-1 record through the first 10 games. Colorado currently has nine points and sits in sixth place in the eight-team Central Division in the Western Conference.
