Not quite halfway through the NHL’s 2021 season, Thursday will mark the one-year anniversary of the Avalanche’s last home game played before fans.

On March 11, 2020, the Avs used an overtime goal from J.T. Compher to defeat the New York Rangers 3-2 before a sellout Pepsi Center crowd of 18,025. The next day, the NHL “paused” its season because of the coronavirus pandemic, and ultimately the league chose to return to play in August by going straight into the playoffs in two Canadian bubbles.

A year after the beginning of the NHL’s pause, the Avs will be four games into a club-record, nine-game homestand at the renamed Ball Arena, which still currently does not allow fans.

The Avs and star center Nathan MacKinnon were set to complete a two-game set against the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday. MacKinnon is returning from a three-game injury absence; he also missed the Rangers game a year ago to injury.

“I remember I was hurt that night. I remember the NBA got shut down during our game. We figured it was over for our season at that time,” MacKinnon said after Wednesday’s morning skate. “Everyone didn’t know how long it would take. Obviously, this year has flown by. I remember going home like it was yesterday, doing the two-week quarantine at my house back home in Canada, and just kind of waiting, week-by-week, to see when we would return.

“It’s been a definitely long but quick year. Excited to get this whole COVID thing over with, for sure.”

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar was enthusiastic about how far last season’s team could go before it was playing without seven injured regulars in a second-round series against the Dallas Stars. The Avs’ depth is much improved for 2021 and Bednar is as enthusiastic as ever, despite the club’s rash of injuries.

“I love our depth and we’ve needed it,” he said Wednesday. “It’s hard to believe that’s a year ago already. That was unfortunate. We were feeling good about our season, starting to get healthy. There was a lot of buzz that the NBA had stopped… and that we may also be taking a pause in our season, which was disappointing. We were excited about our team and where we were going. (But) it gave us some time to get healthy.”

He added: “Here we are, now, to be a year later and not even halfway through another season, with the timeline and the late start of our season this year. Everything is kind of different and off-kilter but it’s the circumstances that we’re playing in and we got to make the most of it.”

Footnote. MacKinnon will return to the lineup a week after taking an illegal hit to the head from San Jose rookie forward Joachim Blicheld, who was suspended for two games.

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MacKinnon said he was unaware of Blicheld’s suspension and didn’t have much of a comment about the play.

“I wasn’t paying attention. Obviously, it wasn’t a great hit. I think that’s fair,” he said. “I really wasn’t hurt that bad. I know he didn’t mean to and it was just an unfortunate play.”

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