For any of you faithful MHH Podcast listeners, you know I had a hard time imagining a winning road trip against four Eastern Conference playoff teams. Last Sunday, we were looking at the schedule and I just couldn’t foresee this young team, learning a new system, winning more than two games against Pittsburgh, Washington, Tampa Bay, and Florida.
Well, it hasn’t been perfect, but the Avalanche have a great chance to do just that—head home after this brutal road trip with a really solid 4-1 record. All they have to do is beat an up-and-coming Panthers team, fresh off a Capitals drubbing themselves.
Aleksander Barkov leads the South Beach Kitty Kats with five points in the early going and the ageless Jaromir Jagr, who makes our own Jarome Iginla look positively juvenile, is chugging along with a goal and an assist in four games played. In goal, Roberto Luongo has started three games, won two of them, and prevented a solid .920 of pucks from finding the net. A defense led by all-world blue liner Aaron Ekblad probably doesn’t hurt.
The Avalanche should be running out a pretty similar lineup, with one notable change. In place of Fydor Tyutin will be slap shot specialist Eric Gelinas, who had himself a badass preseason and will be looking to take advantage of his first start of the season. This will be the last game before a crazy six-day break, during which the team is likely to see reinforcements from John Mitchell and maybe even Mikko Rantenen.
Can the Avs return home with a winning road trip? Find out at 5:00 PM Mountain Standard Time on the Altitude Network.
Lineup
Landeskog—MacKinnon—Iginla
Grigorenko—Soderberg—Duchene
Martinsen—Colborne—Comeau
McLeod—Smith—Gourque
Zadorov—Johnson
Beauchemin—Barrie
Gelinas—Wiercioch
Varlamov
Pickard