John Glennon

jglennon@tennessean.com

Predators defenseman Seth Jones (upper body) and forward Paul Gaustad (upper body) will not play tonight against Colorado and probably will miss Thursday's game against Buffalo as well, coach Barry Trotz said today.

Forward Patrick Eaves (lower body) is also out for tonight's game at Bridgestone Arena (7 p.m., Fox TN, 102.5-FM).

Jones, the team's first-round pick in 2013, took a hard hit early in Sunday's win over Chicago and did not return.

"He got banged up there, so you're always concerned," Trotz said. "With him, you're just always going to be very cautious. He's a good young player and has a very good career ahead of him. We'll make sure he's fully healthy. We don't want to put him into any situation that's going to have any affects later."

With Jones out, defenseman Michael Del Zotto should return to a regular role. Del Zotto has been a healthy scratch in two of the last three games, and got just 3:13 ice time in a win over Calgary.

"He knows he's in competition all the time," Trotz said. "I would say there's only two certainties on our hockey team, (Roman) Josi and (Shea) Weber. After that, you have to battle for ice time. That's a good thing, to have competition within a group. He knows that and I'm pretty sure he's going to make it very difficult for anyone to get back in."