Jared Bednar’s line blender is about to get a workout.

With the return of Jonathan Drouin and Valeri Nichushkin to the Colorado Avalanche lineup, the possibilities are almost endless for what Bednar can do with his top six. And through 120 minutes of action with those two back, he’s already getting a peak at what those possible combinations are.

Against Washington, he stuck with what he knew had been working, leaving Artturi Lehkonen on a line with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen. In Philadelphia, he changed things up a bit, reuniting Jonathan Drouin with MacKinnon and moving Rantanen to the second line to play with Casey Mittelstadt. Those lines weren’t set in stone, as we saw a few other combinations throughout the course of those two games.

While Bednar would prefer not to constantly be moving pieces around, he’ll have to do a little bit of that to find the right mix.

He said before the team left for their four-game road trip, “I want them to develop that chemistry, but I do want to look at a few of those combinations throughout the season.”

The biggest change he can make is moving Rantanen away from MacKinnon. He did that in the playoffs back in 2022 when Nazem Kadri was rolling but has only done so sporadically since then. With Mittelstadt in the picture, he now has that option and at least gave it a shot for one game.

In Monday’s win against the Flyers, the new-look second line didn’t really produce a whole lot of offense. In a little under seven minutes played together, the trio (which included Nichushkin) was on the ice for six scoring chances against and created just three of their own. This was the first time that group has played together this season, though. Don’t be surprised if you get them together again on Thursday.

The problem with putting Nichushkin and Rantanen on a line together is that it leaves the first line looking a little small. If Bednar wanted to, he could have Nichushkin and Lehkonen swap lines, putting the big Russian on MacKinnon’s wing. Nichushkin playing with MacKinnon and Drouin would be an intriguing combination, allowing the two Finnish forwards to stay together with Mittelstadt.

In this writer’s opinion, those might be the best line combinations Bednar could put together if he wanted to equally spread out the size and talent in his top six.

Either way, the Avalanche coach now has plenty of options. That’s something he would have killed for even a week ago.