Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, the Hart Trophy candidate who has missed the last two games with a shoulder injury, is expected to miss 2-4 weeks overall. But the NHL’s third-leading scorer was skating in a red non-contact sweater before Colorado began its team practice Monday, less than a week after he was injured in a 4-3 overtime loss at Vancouver.

While it’s encouraging that MacKinnon is skating, he did not practice with the team and he still could be weeks before he is cleared to take contact and return to the lineup.

“There’s no change on MacKinnon at this point,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said after practice. “We’ve given the time-table and if anything changes on that we’ll let you know. But that’s just him wanting to get on the ice and skating — still use his legs even though he’s got the upper-body injury.”

MacKinnon’s right winger, Mikko Rantanen, also didn’t practice with the team Monday, and is questionable for Tuesday’s game against the visiting San Jose Sharks.

“He’s banged up a little bit so we’ll see how it feels tomorrow,” Bednar said of Rantanen, who has played in all 51 games thus far. “Not an ideal situation (to be missing two-thirds of the top line) but there’s still a chance he can play tomorrow so we’ll see how it goes in the morning.”

Colorado’s top line at practice Monday was regular left-winger Gabe Landeskog with rookie center Alex Kerfoot and veteran Colin Wilson.

Footnotes. Jonathan Bernier will start in net against the Sharks. … Avs defenseman Mark Barberio (lower-body) and forward Sven Andrighetto (leg) also didn’t practice Monday and won’t play Tuesday.