Needing to move some players around Wednesday, Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar put a slumping scorer at No. 1 center. Andre Burakovsky hasn’t found the back of the net in 16 games, since Jan. 14.

The drought didn’t end Wednesday, but he set up a teammate.

“For the bulk of his game, I thought he was a dangerous player,” Bednar said. “It looked like he was back to being himself. I wanted to get him rewarded.

“Normally he doesn’t play a lot of 5 vs. 6, but I had him out at the end of the game. I wanted to get him back on the board, feeling good about his game.”

Burakovsky and his lauded wrist shot can be dangerous. He scored five goals in two games in mid-December. He can also be streaky. He’s in the third-longest goal drought among current Colorado forwards and his longest personal stretch of the season. Logan O’Connor hasn’t scored since Jan. 2, and Darren Helm since Dec. 10, though the veteran was injured an entire month during that stretch. At one point Burakovsky was demoted mid-game in favor of AHL call-up Dylan Sikura.

An opportunity to give Burakovsky a different role opened up Wednesday when Nathan MacKinnon was ruled out against the Detroit Red Wings with a lower-body injury. Bednar left the door open for MacKinnon to return Friday.

Helm centered the top line for the first shift of the game in his return to Little Caesars Arena after spending the first 14 seasons of his career with Detroit. After that, Burakovsky assumed the spot between Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. Landeskog (4 of 5) and Rantanen (7 of 15) handled faceoff duties.

It was with his usual linemate Valeri Nichushkin that Burakovsky set up a scoring play. He collected the puck along the boards while Nichushkin went to the net unhindered. Nichushkin settled down a pass and made it 4-1 in an eventual 5-2 Avalanche victory.

“He makes a beautiful play on the Val goal,” Bednar said.

“Val makes a nice move, but a lot of that work was done prior in the shift by Burky in order to get that goal. I thought he had a good night.”

Bednar noted Burakovsky was caught watching on Filip Zadina’s second-period rebound conversion that put Detroit within a goal.

“He made the one mistake on that 3-on-1 goal-against. But he was driving the puck in the areas, he was strong on the puck, he was shooting the puck. He missed the top corner in the second period three times, for sure, that was close.”

Burakovsky was on Bednar’s list of Avalanche players who stepped up in MacKinnon’s absence. MacKinnon has missed 15 games due to injury and COVID protocol and the Avalanche are 12-2-1 without their top-line center.

“I just think there’s a hunger there to continue to try and win regardless of who’s in the lineup. I think also those guys have a little something to prove,” Bednar said. “Mac gets a lot of credit, but that’s because he has a lot of responsibility that he’s earned.

“A guy like that’s out of the lineup, everyone around him knows that they have to step up. Our guys seem to be eager to do that.”

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