AVALANCHE: Short-handed Colorado headed to Canada for three-game road trip.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA» The Avalanche traveled to Vancouver on Monday afternoon without defensemen Erik Johnson and Anton Lindholm, both out indefinitely after being injured in Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the visiting Edmonton Oilers.
Johnson, who leads Colorado in ice time, is believed to have a wrist injury, and Lindholm, the rookie who has become a regular on the blue line, likely has an arm injury. The team is saying both injuries are “upper body.”
Another defenseman, Mark Barberio, missed his 11th game because of a lower-body injury Sunday, and his recovery does not yet include skating.
“I don’t have a timeline on (the injuries),” Avs coach Jared Bednar told Rick Sadowski of NHL.com after Monday’s brief practice in Centennial. “We have three D out, so the job gets tougher now, but we’ll focus on the guys who are in the lineup and the guys we recall and help them as much as we can and keep trying to improve with the guys we got.
“It is what it is. We play with the players that we have. With three guys out, they’ll be guys playing in situations that they don’t normally play in. Different guys are going to have to step up if we’re going to win.”
The Avs on Monday recalled defensemen David Warsofsky and Andrei Mironov from San Antonio of the American Hockey League, and they will meet the team in Vancouver, where it plays the Canucks on Tuesday. The available defensemen who practiced Monday were Nikita Zadorov, who was Johnson’s partner on the top pairing, Tyson Barrie, Patrick Nemeth and rookies Sam Girard and Duncan Siemens.
Colorado’s trip continues Thursday at Edmonton and Saturday at Calgary. Because of Sunday’s blown third-period lead and costly loss to Edmonton, and Minnesota’s 5-3 win at the New York Islanders on Monday, the Avs are now five points behind the Wild for the last Western Conference playoff spot. They also trail Los Angeles by a point and Calgary by one.
The Avs have 24 regular-season games remaining.
Goalie Jonathan Bernier also didn’t travel with the team Monday. He remains out with a head injury, suffered in Friday’s 6-1 loss at Winnipeg. So Semyon Varlamov will make his second consecutive start Tuesday, backedup by Andrew Hammond, who was recalled from the minors Sunday.
“Right now it’s Varly’s net,” Bednar said. “We need Varly to be exceptional, right? We need a lot of guys to be better than what they’ve been, better than average or just good if we’re going to win now — especially with the guys that are out of the lineup.”