MacKinnon to miss 2-4 weeks for Avalanche with upper-body injury

Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon is expected to be out 2-4 weeks with an upper-body injury, coach Jared Bednar said Thursday.
MacKinnon was injured during the second period of a 4-3 overtime loss at the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday. He grabbed his shoulder and exited to the locker room with 6:04 remaining after colliding with Canucks defenseman Alexander Edler. MacKinnon had an assist and was plus-2 before leaving.

"It's not a great feeling when you lose as guy like that, especially when you know what he does for our team," Bednar said. "But I'm excited for the opportunity it's going to present some other guys here like [Alexander] Kerfoot. It's an opportunity for Mikko [Rantanen] and [Gabriel Landeskog] to try and carry that line and continue to do what they were doing with a new centerman. We have a real talented guy in Kerfoot going in there, we like what he's been doing with our team, what he's done on the power play, so he'll filter in there as well.
"Everyone has to pick up the slack, there is no one player that can fill in Nate's shoes at this point. We're going to need a little bit more from everyone else and hopefully get the job done as a team."
MacKinnon will miss his first game when the Avalanche play at the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday (9 p.m. ET; SNW, ALT, NHL.TV).
The 22-year-old is second in the NHL with 61 points (24 goals, 37 assists) in 49 games, trailing Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who has 64 points (27 goals, 37 assists) in 50 games.
MacKinnon represented the Avalanche at the 2018 Honda NHL All-Star Game on Sunday.