Pierre Turgeon skated hard Tuesday at the Avalanche morning skate at the Pepsi Center, and afterward said he still hopes to be able to play on the upcoming Colorado road trip before the NHL shuts down for the Olympic break.
But the veteran center, who missed his 13th consecutive game Tuesday night with a shoulder injury, has heard the argument that with the break this close, why not just play it safe and sit out until Colorado resumes the NHL schedule Feb. 28 against Minnesota?
“I’m going to be going on the road trip, and we’ll see how it goes,” Turgeon said Tuesday morning. “We’ll take it day by day from there, and if I can’t play, I’ll come back after the break.
“I’d like to play a couple of games before, but I won’t do it just to say I’ve played. I want to make sure I’m OK if I come back. I won’t rush. I won’t do anything I won’t feel comfortable with, because I know I need to be comfortable when I come back.”
Especially with the Avalanche struggling on the power play, Turgeon’s absence – he’s on the second power-play unit – has been a problem for Colorado.
“It’s tough watching,” Turgeon said. “You have no control watching.”
Turgeon, 36, suffered the shoulder injury Jan. 7 against Columbus.
“Watching him practice, he still looks like he’s a little bit away,” Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said. “He’s going to come on the trip and he’ll skate, and we’ll talk it over before each game. If we’re not sure, we have an extra two weeks before we come back. So we’ll be cautious.”
During the trip, the Avalanche will face Minnesota on Thursday, Columbus on Friday and Detroit on Sunday.
Footnotes
The Avalanche staged a special introduction for its Olympics-bound players before Tuesday night’s game, the Avs’ final home appearance before the break. Nine members of Colorado’s active roster are scheduled to play in Turin. A 10th member of the Avs, defenseman Ossi Vaananen, was selected for the Finnish team, but is out for the rest of the season with a broken ankle, and goaltender Vitaly Kolesnik (Kazakhstan) is playing for the Avalanche’s American Hockey League affiliate, the Lowell Lock Monsters. … In their second full game without Vaananen, the Avs again went with Bob Boughner at right wing on the fourth line and made Cody McCormick a healthy scratch.
