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Colorado Avalanche Game Day: Undefeated Avalanche are on national television tonight

Good news regional fans, you can watch this one.

NHL: Colorado Avalanche at Pittsburgh Penguins Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The Colorado Avalanche will be playing the Pittsburgh Penguins on prime time television tonight at 5PM MST. Finally a game regional Avalanche fans will be able to watch. The dark days are over (for tonight).

This matchup has the potential to be a great game to watch with two NHL Superstars in Nathan MacKinnon and Sidney Crosby set to take the ice. The two Nova Scotian boys front two very different teams but do so in similar fashion. With grit and an incessant need to win.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avalanche have gotten off to an incredible start this season sitting at (5-0). Despite the unbeaten record the boys in burgundy aren’t satisfied and claim their is much to improve on.

If I were a betting man I’d bet this will be the night MacKinnon scores his first four point game of the season. Mack seems to shine brightest when the spotlight is on and has a quite (but predominant) eight points through the first five games.

It seems like Sakic’s plan to bolster the second line has paid off. Through five games they have contributed 12 points with Bura, Naz and The Don each scoring two goals.

Based on warmups, we’re going to have some lineup changes tonight. JT Compher is off the injured reserved list and will be on the third line with Tyson Jost and Colin Wilson.

On defense, Nikita Zadorov has been scratched in place for Mark Barberio. We can only assume this means Ian Cole is finally up to speed following his injury and will be with Cale Makar on the second pair.

Forwards

Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen

Joonas Donskoi - Nazem Kadri - Andre Burakovsky

Colin Wilson - Tyson Jost - J.T. Compher

Matt Nieto - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Matt Calvert

Defense

Samuel Girard - Erik Johnson

Cale Makar - Ian Cole

Mark Barberio - Ryan Graves

Pittsburgh Penguins

The Penguins are surviving with a less than experienced club. Crosby has performed but will be without line mate Evgeni Malkin for the fifth straight game.

Forwards

Jake Guentzel - Sidney Crosby - Brandon Tanev

Dominik Kahun - Jared McCann - Patric Hornqvist

Zach Aston-Reese - Teddy Blueger - Dominik Simon

Adam Johnson - Joseph Blandisi - Sam Lafferty

Defense

Matt Dumoulin - Kris Letang

Marcus Pettersson - Justin Schultz

Jack Johnson - John Marino

Goaltending

The Avs will be going with Philipp Grubauer tonight. He is rocking a 4-0 record and a SV% of .925 so far and has made some key saves late in games. In fact he’s only given up one goal in the third period through his four starts.

Expect Pens tender Matt Murray to get his 6th straight start tonight. Murray hasn’t quite been the Stanley Cup champion goalie we are used to seeing. So far he has a SV% of .911 and is allowing 2.82 goals a game.