While the Western Conference Final against the Vegas Golden Knights awaits, there are still some concerns for the Colorado Avalanche. The biggest one of them all comes with injuries.

There were already concerns in the last series against the Minnesota Wild when Artturi Lehkonen and Sam Malinski were out. Now, those concerns could grow with more players missing time in recent practices.

Who’s been missing?

Along with Lehkonen and Malinski, there have been a couple of others who haven’t taken part in the last few practices. Cale Makar has been the big missing player, still fighting through multiple bruises and banged-up plays he took against the Wild.


But further disruption on the blue line has come in the absence of Brent Burns. He has also not been spotted on the ice. Alex Gagne from the AHL-affiliate Colorado Eagles came up for the most recent practice.

Finally, Josh Manson has still been fighting through the upper-body injury that kept him out of the beginning of the second round and the end of the first round against the Los Angeles Kings. He and the rest of the blue line need to stay healthy for the Avalanche to keep on rolling as they have all playoffs long.

The good news

However, there has been some better news on the injury front recently to ease concerns. Malinski and Manson were at the most recent practice in regular jerseys and took part in the practice sessions.

Up front, Nathan MacKinnon has seemingly avoided any sort of facial contusion or fracture after taking the puck in the face from Devon Toews. Also, Lehkonen was spotted before the last practice getting some reps in individually.

According to Jared Bednar, all his missing players are day-to-day. However, he expects almost all of them to be ready to go for Game One on Wednesday night.

Particularly for the forward core, another player hasn’t been called up from the Eagles yet to fill the void. Defensively, Colorado will look to get healthy so they don’t have to rely on an NHL debut for Gagne. They can also avoid calling up Keaton Middleton or another defenseman from Loveland.

While these injury concerns have popped up, it won’t be something Colorado has to deal with long-term. They’ll all be rearing to go starting on Wednesday, only four more wins away from competing for the greatest trophy in sports.