Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon missed several shifts in the first half of the second period against Nashville Saturday at the Pepsi Center, and he acknowledged after practice Sunday that he wasn’t injured and had been benched by coach Jared Bednar.

“I wasn’t playing that good and just needed to sit down for a bit and regroup,” said MacKinnon, who wasn’t in the dressing room when it opened after the 3-2 loss to the Predators. That loss left the Avalanche with only 27 points at the halfway point of the season.

MacKinnon said he got the point.

“Yeah, I played a good second half,” he said.

He added that he had a brief conversation with Bednar before practice Sunday morning, and he considered the air cleared.

“It was a good reminder to stay focused,” MacKinnon said. He added, “It’s just in-game stuff that happens in sports. It was like three or four shifts. It wasn’t a big deal.”

How long was the Sunday talk?

“Fifteen seconds,” MacKinnon said. “I get it. It’s all good.”

MacKinnon ended up playing 16:32 against the Predators, more than three minutes fewer than his average. He had taken a stick on the hand in the first period and was demonstrative in arguing to the referees that it should have been a penalty, but MacKinnon said that had nothing to do with his absence from the ice. “I’m all good,” he said.

Bednar took the day off from speaking with the media Sunday, which isn’t all that unusual because the Avalanche will practice again Monday and then face Chicago Tuesday at the Pepsi Center. After the game Saturday, Bednar said of MacKinnon’s absence during the first half of the second period: “Well, certainly it wasn’t because he got dinged up. He played a good game for us. He missed a few shifts there in the second period.”

The Sunday practice wasn’t lengthy, but unsurprisingly included considerable skating work at the end. At one point in the figure-8 lap-type part of the work, captain Gabe Landeskog had one arm behind his back, a la a distance speed skater.

“That’s really just to make sure we’re in good shape when we get two days in between the next game,” Landeskog said. “You want to make sure we’re in good shape. I think we have to skate during the season to keep your conditioning up. To prove a point or not, I think it’s well-needed sometime.”

Said Matt Duchene: “We’ve been skating every day. When you’re not winning games, it’s kind of expected that you’re going to skate a little bit. It’s not like it’s killing us, but obviously it’s a message, absolutely. We’re all aware of what that message is, and it’s about working as hard through it as you can.”

Defenseman Nikita Zadorov said of the skating, “Why not? We’re losing, it shouldn’t be fun to practice. That’s the point. If you want less skating, you should win the games. That’s what I think.”

One of the challenges for the top players and leaders on a losing team — the Avalanche has the worst record in the league, five points behind Arizona — is to prevent a complete demoralization in the dressing room.

“You have to keep grinding, keep grinding every day every practice and every game,” Landeskog said. “You can’t just roll over and accept where we’re at. You have to keep finding ways, and if you wanted practice out there today — all you have to do is work as hard as you can and spread some positive energy out there. That’s what I try to do.”

Said Duchene: “It’s hard. I think the only way to do it is approach every day like a new day and try to be the best you can be every day.”