On the bright side, Cale Makar will be fresh off three days of rest.
The Avs are battered and blistered and barely hanging onto their playoff life as a long off-season beckons. Nobody needs recharge time more than the superstars, whose usage has reached unprecedented heights. But Avs coach Jared Bednar refuses to allow Nathan MacKinnon to leave the ice between shifts long enough for the season to flash before his eyes.
“Do we get to a point where he runs out of gas? Maybe,” Bednar said after the Avalanche’s Game 5 loss to the Kraken on Wednesday night.