Nikita Zadorov was a healthy scratch for back-to-back games against Vegas and Chicago over the weekend, and the Avalanche defenseman said after practice Monday that he had "no idea" if he would play Thursday against Carolina at the Pepsi Center.
Coach
Jared Bednar said after Saturday's 6-3 win against the Blackhawks that he was basing his lineup on "performance ... that's what we're going to do the rest of the year. We're playing to win."
Zadorov, who signed a two-year, $4.3 million contract Sept. 15, the day after veterans reported to training camp, has one goal, one assist and 15 penalty minutes in eight games, along with an even plus/minus rating. A first-round pick (No. 13) of Buffalo in 2013, he was a key part of the June 2015 trade that sent
Ryan O'Reilly to the Sabres.
The 6-feet-5, 230-pound Zadorov said nothing happened off the ice to affect his status, so how does he think he's played so far?
"Maybe I wasn’t great, made a couple of mistakes there,” he said. "I think everyone makes mistakes, and the only way to go through that is to work hard. That’s it.”
Zadorov didn't play in the season opener against the New York Rangers, but that was understandable because it took several days before he reported to camp and practiced with team while waiting for his immigration paperwork to be completed.
"We've got a young group of D-men and some guys are still trying to prove themselves to where they exactly shake out in our lineup and what they can do for us consistently, and I'd say 'Z' falls into that category for us," Bednar said Monday.
"He's got a lot of potential and he's been scratched just based on performance. We've liked what we've seen from some other guys a little more consistently than we've liked what we've seen from 'Z' so far this year.
"The plan moving forward is keep him working, keep trying to help him get better and keep evaluating on a game-by-game basis."
The plan going into the season was to play Zadorov on the No. 1 defense pairing with
Erik Johnson. Rookie
Anton Lindholm was with Johnson the past two games. Lindholm played a season-high 20:59 Saturday, had four blocked shots, three official hits and helped kill off all five Blackhawks power plays.
"Part of the reason why we have someone else playing in the first pair right now ... some of the things that you think about when it comes to that is that he should have potential to play in the first pair, which is why we use him there a little bit," Bednar said.
"We also like what see from some other guys in the bottom pair. I'll give you an example: a guy like
Mark Barberio, he's maybe had an off game or so and the rest of the time he's been really consistent at what he does in that pair.
(Chris) Bigras, you can say the same for a young guy coming in, he's been pretty good there. That's where you get decisions to make, tough decisions."
Barberio was in the third pair Saturday, with rookie
Andrei Mironov, who played his second NHL game after being recalled from AHL San Antonio. Bigras was scratched. The Avalanche seem set with
Patrik Nemeth and
Tyson Barrie as the second pair.
The Avalanche are carrying eight defensemen, so two have to sit each game.
" 'Z' would maybe do a pretty good job in some of these pairs too," Bednar said. "Right now, consistently, we've liked what some of the other guys have done a little bit more than what 'Z' has done. Part of that's maybe looking at his potential, where he should be and what we saw of him last year we haven't seen so far this year.
"We'll still make decisions on our lineup for later in the week as we go here. It's part of what they do in practice that helps us determine who's playing too. We're not just looking at the last game and ignoring the next four days."
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