Bednar said that the team is going to recall netminder Spencer Martin from the San Antonio Rampage to provide support while Varlamov is sidelined, but he doesn't expect the absence to be long-term.
"I'm hopeful that it's not. Apparently, he's feeling better today than yesterday. I'm hoping it's going to be shorter than what he's had in the past," said Bednar. "We'll have Spencer Martin join us for tomorrow night's game."
A bug of some sort was working its way through Colorado's lineup on the recent four-game road swing, as Tyson Barrie, Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon were among those who missed practice time due to illness during the trip. Regardless, none of them missed a game, and the absence of Soderberg and Colborne isn't expected to impact the Avalanche's lineup for Wednesday's contest against the Philadelphia Flyers.
"I would say not an issue at this point," Bednar said.
After going 2-2 on the road swing, the Avs are now turning their attention to a two-game stretch at home, which starts against a Flyers squad that is red hot.
"They got nine straight, I believe, so they're probably feeling pretty good. Sometimes that can be to our advantage as well," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "We're certainly not taking these guys lightly. We're going to come out and we're going to make sure we try to take control of this game and try to end their streak.
"I don't see a reason why we wouldn't use it as motivation. It would be awesome to shut them down and to end the streak, and for us, to end that streak on home ice too. We want to get back on the winning side of things at home. We got to come out with that punch-first mentality and come out and really take charge of this hockey game."
Bednar said he's hoping to take the mentality his team has on the road and apply it at home, putting aside the last homestand and focusing on playing simple hockey.
"You got to find a way as a team, as an individual, to turn the page after every game. Wins, you got to be able to turn the page and focus in on your next opponent, and after losses it's the same way," he said. "It shouldn't become a mental thing for us at home. We have to go concentrate on what we have to do as a group to have success, and I think we've had a little bit of focus at home. Again, I don't know exactly how to pinpoint it, but it seems like something different is kind of biting us every night at home. So it's going to take a good focus from our group and a real competitive spirit from our guys.
"It takes a full team effort in order to get it done, and I think that our focus has been a little bit better [on the road] than it has been at home, especially as an overall group. That's our challenge tomorrow, especially with a team like Philly coming in--[which] is the hottest team in the league. It's not an ideal situation for us coming home, but we know we didn't like our homestand. We got to come back--we played three pretty good games on the road--and now we got to find a way to sort of repeat those performances at home."
