Former Duluth star Toninato is no stranger to St. Paul “X”
ST. PAUL, MINN.» Despite being an NHL rookie, Avalanche center Dominic Toninato has considerable experience playing at the Xcel Energy Center, where Colorado played the Wild on Tuesday night.
As a sophomore, junior and senior at Duluth (Minn.) East High School, Toninato played in the Minnesota state hockey tournament at the NHL arena. As a junior in 2011, the Greyhounds lost in the AA state championship in triple overtime to an Eden Prairie team featuring standout defenseman Nick Seeler, who is now an NHL rookie for the Wild.
“Lots of memories,” Toninato said after Tuesday’s morning skate at the ‘X.’ “It’s a great tournament and every kid in Minnesota grows up dreaming of playing here. You’re playing in front of 18,000 people, you’ve got the student sections and the bands. It’s just an incredible event and something every kid wants to play in. I mean, you’re 15, 16 or 17 years old playing in front of that many people. It’s amazing.”
It’s so amazing that the Wild allowed assistant coach Darby Hendrickson to fly home midway through a road trip last weekend and watch his son play in the 2018 AA state final.
Lineup. The Avs kept the MGM Line intact to begin Tuesday’s game. In last week’s road trip, coach Jared Bednar dropped left wing Gabe Landeskog to the second line and had rookie Tyson Jost play with center Nathan MacKinnon and right winger Mikko Rantanen.
The Landeskog-MacKinnonRantanen line has not been as good on the road as it has been at home because the home team gets the last change, and the opponent can put its preferred checking line against the MGM guys.
“We always have the option to split them up or bump them back together in games,” Bednar said. “It’s not a hard transition for those guys.”
Nail Yakupov was Colorado’s scratched forward Tuesday and the odd-men out at defense were Anton Lindholm and Mark Alt, the latter of whom has yet to play for the club after being acquired from Philadelphia last month.
Footnotes. Tuesday was the fourth and final regular-season game between the Avs and Wild. Colorado won the series 3-0-1, winning 5-1 on Tuesday and 7-2 and 7-1 in the previous two games, both in Denver. “We don’t like the air,” Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau joked Tuesday morning about the Mile High City. The Wild still has a sizzling 24-6-6 home record after the loss. … The Avs are now 6-1-4 without top defenseman Erik Johnson, who missed his 11th consecutive game because of a shoulder injury. … The injured Avs not traveling this week include forward Colin Wilson (head), defenseman Mark Barberio (upper-body) and goalie Jonathan Bernier (head) and Andrew Hammond (head).