Colorado’s east coast road trip continues today in a matinee matchup against the New York Rangers. After a disappointing loss against the New York Islanders on Wednesday night, which saw the Colorado Avalanche lose by a final score of 6-3, they look to bounce right back against the Rangers. This will be the second and final regular-season matchup between these two teams, with Colorado winning the first one also by a score of 6-3.
Colorado Avalanche (19-2-6)
The Opponent: New York Rangers (15-12-2)
Advertisement
Time: 10:30 a.m. MT
Watch: Altitude, Altitude+, ESPN+
Listen: Altitude Sports Radio, 92.5 FM
Unexpectedly, Colorado comes into this game off a loss to the New York Islanders, which was just their second regulation loss since the season started. That game felt like the first true low-effort game from the Avs, in my opinion at least. Yes, they did score and kept themselves competitive in this game at least for a bit, but despite that, it feels like a lot of the players, if not all of them, threw in the towel and didn’t give a full effort to get back into that game, for whatever reason. Which you can excuse if you want to, they have been giving a full effort and during most all the other games this season, and they’re bound to get tired eventually, it happens, especially over the course of an 82-game season. That being said, tonight, they’ll need to give a full effort against the New York Rangers.
Advertisement
Colorado called up Tristen Nielsen from the AHL late last night, no word yet on who might be missing from the lineup but the timing of such transaction suggests it may not be just an insurance move. Also no word on the status of Scott Wedgewood and if he can enter back into the net after Mackenzie Blackwood didn’t have his best game on Long Island.
Projected Lineup
Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Martin Necas
Gabriel Landeskog – Brock Nelson – Ross Colton
Valeri Nichushkin – Jack Drury – Victor Olofsson
Parker Kelly – Zakhar Bardakov – Joel Kiviranta
Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Josh Manson – Brent Burns
Samuel Girard – Sam Malinski
Advertisement
Mackenzie Blackwood
Trent Miner
New York Rangers
After having some early-season struggles and currently sitting at second-to-last in the Metropolitan Division, the Rangers find themselves just two points out of a playoff spot because of how wide open the Eastern Conference is right now. This Rangers team continues to be one of the more confusing ones in the league, as they have a lot of good players, but they just continue to struggle, especially when playing at home, which could play in Colorado’s favor. As previously mentioned, though, this is no team to scoff at; they are an NHL team with good players, and will likely come out and give Colorado their best shot today.
Projected Lineup
Artemi Panarin – Mika Zibanejad – Alexis Lafrenière
JT Miller – Vincent Trocheck – Conor Sheary
Will Cuylle – Noah Laba – Brett Berard
Jonny Brodzinski – Sam Carrick – Taylor Raddysh
Vladislav Gavrikov – Braden Schneider
Carson Soucy – Will Borgen
Matthew Robertson – Scott Morrow
Igor Shesterkin
Spencer Martin
