Three defensemen -- Tyson Barrie, Anton Lindholm and Patrik Nemeth -- are injured and won't play Thursday when the Avalanche take on Washington at the Pepsi Center.

Barrie, who played 25 minutes Saturday against Ottawa in Stockholm, has an upper-body injury, while Lindholm (broken jaw) and Nemeth (lower body) will miss their fourth and third consecutive games, respectively.

“It’s been bugging him a little bit," coach Jared Bednar said of Barrie, who is the team's second-leading scorer with 14 points (two goals, 12 assists) . "He was pretty sore yesterday. He’s better today. He’ll be a guy that should be able to come on the road trip with us and hopefully play this weekend.”

The Avalanche play in Nashville and Detroit on Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

Also, forward Tyson Jost will be sent to San Antonio on a conditioning assignment. Jost has missed eight consecutive games and 10 of the past 12 with lower-body injuries.

"Lot of discussion on his situation, from coaches and (general manager) Joe (Sakic) and his staff,” Bednar said. “He’s missed a lot of time. It’s a lot of time to be out to just jump back in and we feel like we want to put him in a situation to succeed when he comes back, so it’s a good opportunity for him to go down. They have a busy schedule coming up. He’ll go down and get some games and get his feet underneath him.”

The Avalanche, 0-2-1 in the past three games, return to Pepsi Center for the first time since Nov. 2. They went 0-1-1 against Ottawa last weekend in the 2017 SAP NHL Global Series in Stockholm.

"The trip was so much fun and a blast, but I think everybody kind of felt on the flight home that we all wanted to go home and see our families and sleep in our own beds," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "It was nice to get a couple days off to rest and now we're back at it."

Semyon Varlamov will start in goal for the Avalanche. Backup Philipp Grubauer will be in net for the Capitals, who won six consecutive games against Colorado since a 4-1 loss on Nov. 10, 2013.

Two rookies acquired in the Matt Duchene trade -- defenseman Samuel Girard and center Vladislav Kamenev -- will be in the lineup. Girard will be on the top pair with Erik Johnson, while Kamenev will be on the fourth line with Sven Andrighetto and Nail Yakupov.

Girard is wearing No. 49, Kamenev No. 91.

The Avalanche lineup:

FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Colin Wilson -- Alexander Kerfoot -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau
Sven Andrighetto -- Vladislav Kamenev -- Nail Yakupov

DEFENSE
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Nikita Zadorov -- Mark Barberio
Chris Bigras -- Andrei Mironov

GOALIES
Semyon Varlamov
Jonathan Bernier



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