Avalanche Look To Find Some Consistency 7 Weeks Into The Season

DENVER (The Sports Xchange) - The Avalanche face the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night at the Pepsi Center, and they'll be without captain Gabriel Landeskog for a sixth straight game.

Landeskog has a lower-body injury and hasn't skated since Friday, but coach Jared Bednar said he is close to returning.

"He's still considered day to day for me," Bednar told HockeyBuzz.com. "He's having good days and bad days right now."

Goaltender Semyon Varlamov's wrist injury has improved enough that he will serve as Calvin Pickard's backup, but he will not start for the second straight game.

Defenseman Erik Johnson didn't practice Monday because of illness but is expected to play Tuesday.

The Avalanche received a bit of good news. Leading scorer Nathan MacKinnon will play after slamming hard into the boards in Saturday's shootout loss to Vancouver. MacKinnon got treatment on his neck and back Sunday and is good to go.

"I was skating as fast as I could and lost an edge, and kind of spun," he told HockeyBuzz.com after Monday's practice. "If we were playing (Sunday) I think I would have been able to skate. I got some treatment from the trainers and I feel better today."

Colorado is trying to find some consistency seven weeks into the season. The Avalanche haven't won or lost more than two games in a row yet and are 9-10-1 with three games left on this five-game homestand.

They would like to turn things around against a Nashville team that beat them handily Nov. 1. Colorado was guilty of playing poor defense and taking undisciplined penalties against the Predators, and it prompted a team meeting right after that game ended.

A win Tuesday would even Colorado's record and probably mean no team meeting.

"It'd be nice to get to .500 -- I know it really (wouldn't) be .500, but it is in our minds," MacKinnon told HockeyBuzz.com. "I guess we're happy we got a point (against Vancouver), but we obviously wanted to get the win. We're getting better. I think it's a process. We're better than we were last year. We're definitely improving."