While Gabriel Landeskog remains injured, an Avalanche position battle unfolds before playoffs at second-line left wing: “My feeling is that E-Rod needs to play on that line.”

It goes without saying that if the Avs are fully healthy, their six best defensemen and their six best forwards stack up with almost any team’s.

But what if the reality is simply that the Avalanche will not be fully healthy when the playoffs arrive in one month?

That’s increasingly plausible, especially for the forwards as captain Gabriel Landeskog inches without a timeline toward returning from his October knee surgery. As long as that remains the case, it’s Jared Bednar’s job to concoct a contingency plan as to who would be Colorado’s sixth member of the top six.