Avalanche’s Josh Manson will ‘miss some time’ with lower-body injury

Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar announced that defenseman Josh Manson is going to “miss some time” due to a lower-body injury.

The injury occurred late in the first period of Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the New Jersey Devils after taking a weird hit. He struggled to get off the ice and had to be helped down the tunnel, and did not return to the game after that. The Avalanche confirmed his departure at the start of the third period, with Bednar providing the update after the game.

Manson had a hit and a giveaway in 4:06 of ice time before his departure in the win.

At this point in time, there’s no further update on Manson’s timeline for return. However, the team is in the stretch of two games at home, meaning it will be easy for them to run diagnostics on Manson’s injury and give us a more accurate timeline. That update will likely come either during practice on Thursday or Friday, or at morning skate ahead of Saturday’s game against the Calgary Flames.

Manson has had a solid start to the season, with one goal and three assists for four points in 13 games, which puts him on pace for his usual production in the 20-30 point range.

Manson had been moved up to the second pair heading into the game, playing alongside Brett Kulak. As a result of Manson’s injury, Kulak saw his ice time split between time with Brent Burns, Cale Makar and Sam Malinski throughout the game.

With Manson set to miss some games, Noah Juulsen was the team’s lone healthy scratch on Wednesday and will probably be the player to draw into the lineup. There have yet to be any other roster moves made in response to this injury.

The Avalanche currently sit in fourth in the Central Division with a 7-5-1 record, good enough for the first Wild Card spot in the Western Conference. Colorado will look to build off of their win over the Devils when they host the Flames on Saturday at 8 p.m. CT.