A Few Avs Return to Optional Practice Before Postseason Begins

With the 2020-21 regular season officially in the books, the Colorado Avalanche held its first on-ice session of the postseason on Saturday at Ball Arena and the squad welcomed a few of its teammates back as full-participants in the optional practice.
Veteran forwards Nathan MacKinnon and Brandon Saad and young defensemen Conor Timmins and Bowen Byram were four of the 22 players on the ice for the voluntary session, and three of them could return for the start of Avs' Round 1 series against the St. Louis Blues.
"I expect Nathan and Saader to be back, possibly Timmins," head coach Jared Bednar said of his lineup for Game 1. "Those would be the three guys that are possibly eyeing a return for Monday night."

MacKinnon missed four of Colorado's final five games with two different minor lower-body injuries and finished the year second on the Avs with 65 points (20 goals, 45 assists) in 48 contests.
The Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia, native had a point in 14 consecutive games in the 2020 postseason and is averaging 1.35 points per game with 54 (20 goals, 34 assists) in 40 career contests in the playoffs, the fourth-highest total among players to appear in at least 15 postseason outings. He trails only Wayne Gretzky (1.84), Mario Lemieux (1.61) and Barry Pederson (1.53).
"It is obvious, he's one of our stars and a guy that really looks forward to this time of year, and we saw what he can do in the playoffs last year," Bednar said of MacKinnon. "He took his game to a whole new level and to have him out there leading us with [Gabriel Landeskog] and Mikko (Rantanen), I think would be ideal and it's something that we need. He's just such a big part of our hockey team, especially driving our offense, that to have him in from the start of the series would be what the doctor ordered."
Saad, a two-time Stanley Cup champion (2013 and 2015) with the Chicago Blackhawks, last played on April 24 in St. Louis, missing the final 11 games with a lower-body injury. He finished his first campaign in Colorado with 15 goals and nine assists in 44 contests.
Timmins missed the third period of the Avs' final outing of the year on Thursday after collecting two assists in the contest. He made 31 appearances for Colorado in the campaign and had seven helpers, including three in the final three matchups of the season.
Byram, the Avalanche's No. 4 overall selection in the 2019 draft, skated in 19 games in his rookie year with his most recent coming on March 25 where he suffered an upper-body injury against the Vegas Golden Knights.
"He's getting better every day, and now skating with the team I think is going to help him a lot," Bednar noted of Byram. "I think he's got to the point now where he can skate with our group or get in group skates, he's been mostly skating on his own and just real small groups, but now he's feeling a lot better and he's on the mend. The next thing for him will be getting in skates like this with a lot of guys and then taking contact, and we'll see where he gets to. He's missed a significant amount of time here for us now, but we're trying to get him back up to speed and hopefully he's an option for us at some point."
The skaters will have another chance to gear up for the postseason with a practice on Sunday before lineup decisions will have to be made when Colorado opens Round 1 against the Blues on Monday night at Ball Arena.

QUOTABLES

Defenseman Devon Toews on Colorado's leaders: "It's a different type of leadership group, one that is based on the team as a whole. I think it's just like a community kind of environment in the locker room, no one is afraid to speak up or say what's on their mind or give advice to anyone. It's a family in there, and I am just happy to be part of it."
Goaltender Philipp Grubauer on facing St. Louis:"I think they're a heavy team, physical team. We are more of the faster team than physical I would say, but really good team. They have the experience, they've won it a couple years [ago], so it's going to be an interesting series for sure. We got to stay disciplined, we got to stay out of the box and play our game 5-on-5."
Head coach Jared Bednar on his upcoming lineup decisions: "The decisions will be tough, no question. I think our guys have played good and they're getting the job done. We'll look at St. Louis, what we project for their lines, see what we like for our matchups, at least to start and then we'll keep evaluating on a day-to-day basis. A guy that might find himself out of the lineup in Game 1 could possibly be in soon after that. Hopefully the lineup decisions we make and the matchup decisions we make are the right ones, and even then we'll have to address our lineup on a daily basis and pick which lineup we feel is the best one to go the next evening. There's going to be some tough decisions as we get healthier."