The Avalanche recalled
Dominic Toninato on Friday from San Antonio to replace injured and fellow rookie
Vladislav Kamenev, who in his Colorado debut Thursday sustained a broken arm in the 6-2 win against Washington.
Toninato, 23, will join the team for Saturday's game in Nashville and center the fourth line with
Sven Andrighetto and
Nail Yakupov. The Avalanche conclude the two-game trip Sunday in Detroit.
The
Gabriel Landeskog-Nathan MacKinnon-Mikko Rantanen line combined for 12 points (five goals, seven assists) against the Capitals. Here's the
GAME STORY.
Toninato, who is 6-feet-2 and 190 pounds, had three goals, three assists, 10 penalty minutes and a plus-3 rating in 13 games with the Rampage. The Duluth, Minn., native signed a two-year, entry-level contract on Aug. 16 after playing four years at Minnesota-Duluth.
Toninato was Toronto's fifth-round pick (No. 126) in the 2012 NHL draft and became a free agent Aug. 15. He was UMD's captain his senior year and helped the Bulldogs advance to the NCAA Frozen Four, where they lost to the University of Denver in the championship game.
"We evaluated him in the first part of training camp and he looked like a guy who has a future," coach
Jared Bednar said Friday after an optional practice. "As training camp went on I felt he was one of the guys that got better and better, and quicker and quicker in the system as he started to understand it and got used to the players he was playing against.
"He's a big, strong guy who works real hard, a responsible guy. Down there he's been playing a little bit of a checking role, doing a lot of penalty killing and he's creating chances both on the penalty kill and 5-on-5. He's scored some goals and continued to grow there."
The Avalanche assigned rookie center
Tyson Jost, their first-round pick (No. 10) in 2016, to San Antonio on Thursday to get in some games and log significant ice time. He's missed nine consecutive games, and 11 of the past 13, because of lower-body injuries.
"The decision (to recall Toninato), part of it was Jost," Bednar said. "We sent him down for a reason. We need him to get some minutes and to get playing and then we'll get him back up here."
*****
Defenseman
Tyson Barrie practiced Friday while wearing a non-contact jersey, though he later absorbed and dished out some hits along the boards with
Chris Bigras.
Barrie missed his first game Thursday and said he remains "day to day" with an upper-body injury but accompanied the team on the trip and might play this weekend.
"Just been a nagging thing," he said.
It will be much longer before two other injured defensemen --
Anton Lindholm (broken jaw) and
Patrik Nemeth (lower body) -- are able to play.
Nemeth has missed three games, hasn't resumed skating, and is "week-to-week," Bednar said. Lindholm, who's missed four games, is skating by himself and will be re-evaluated next week.
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