Avalanche center Matt Duchene, who took a hit to to the head against Winnipeg Friday and suffered concussion symptoms, will miss his second consecutive game Tuesday night against Los Angeles at the Pepsi Center.
But he was on the ice with his teammates at the morning skate Tuesday, wearing the no-contact orange jersey.
Duchene, who isn’t available to the media until he goes through a regular practice, remained on the ice after most of his teammates had come off.
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Colorado’s leading scorer was making progress.
“He felt better today than yesterday,” Bednar said. “We’ll see what tomorrow brings. We’re taking it day-by-day right now.”
Bednar added, “He didn’t skate yesterday and didn’t feel great. He comes today, he’s feeling really good today. He’s out there on the ice right now and hopefully he gets through that skate and starts feeling good this afternoon again and we’ll progress him tomorrow, he might be able to see some contact.”
After the game against the Kings (7-8-1), the Avalanche (6-8-0) has a three-game road trip to Dallas, Minnesota and Columbus. Bednar said it’s possible that Duchene will travel with the team.
As expected, winger Blake Comeau will return to the lineup against the Kings after missing four games with a groin injury. He will start out on a line with John Mitchell and Jarome Iginla.
“We’ll get him back in,” Bednar said of Comeau. “He’ll be killing penalties for us again. We could use his legs.”
Bednar said he waasn’t reluctant to move Iginla, a certain Hall of Famer, off one of the top two lines.
“Jarome’s been working hard,” Bednar said. “He’s been competing hard on the puck. A lot like most of our team right now, we’re having some struggles with the production offensively. Some games he’s getting some good chances, other games not, a little like the rest of our team. We’re a little bit up and down. We’re just trying to find some combinations that will give us a little bit of life. …
“Again, we need to do what’s right for our team. I think he can help that line produce. We have Comeau coming in, who’s fresh. Mitchell’s been playing better. We need some production throughout our lineup. It can’t just be our top guys. We need to find some secondary scoring, or some primary scoring really at this point. We’ve had combinations together and we’ve tried to leave them together for four or five games, six games. We see some things we like and then we don’t, so we split them up again. We have to find something that works. We can’t just leave it the way it is. (Iginla) is going to relied on still on the power play and on that line to help us produce.”
With Duchene out, and rookie A.J. Greer sent back to San Antonio after a one-game cameo, the shuffling also has Joe Colborne — who hasn’t scored since a hat trick on opening night — moving up to play on the Nathan MacKinnon-centered line.
“He’s a guy that had 19 goals last year and we need to have him start producing again,” Bednar said. “He had a good night the first night and has been kind of cold since.”
Defenseman Patrick Wiercioch will be back in the lineup after two games as a healthy scratch, and Eric Gelinas will be the scratch this time.
