Avalanche at Sharks, Game 32 Preview

The Avalanche take on the Sharks tonight in the second half of a home and home series. The first face off went pretty well for our boys, winning in the shoot out with a slamming goal by Gabriel Landeskog. Here's to hoping tonight's game will go as well (although hanging on to that lead for those last 30 seconds would be totally awesome).

David van der Gulik is making his season debut due to the injuries to Brandon Yip (leg) and Chuck Kobasew (head, IR). In his call up last season, he had an impressive run until he suffered a knee injury that kept him out for 15 games. Upon activation, he was immediately reassigned to Lake Erie, but he came back for one more game in March. Currently, van der Gulik is leading the Monsters in scoring with 19 points (6g, 13a).

Evan Brophey has also been recalled, so it's a pretty safe bet we won't be seeing Matt Hunwick playing forward. Hunny didn't do too poorly, actually, but I'm glad the Avs are being smart about this. I won't go into detail about Brophey as Sandie did an awesome job of it already yesterday, and (by request!) I'll be posting a Checking Out article on him shortly. I will say that I'm concerned this means Paul Stastny is going back on the IR, especially since Brophey is a centerman.

The keys for tonight's game are pretty straight forward:

1. Stay out of the box. Guys, that's what girlfriends are for.
2. Push the play. You know that urgency you had on Tuesday? Yeah, do that.
3. Get physical. Make Olivia Newton-John proud.
4. And always remember...

UPDATE: Per Moser, Stastny in. Jones out (lower body injury). Both call ups will play.