Colorado Avalanche Game Day: Rolling into Music City

After a catastrophically bad few months, the Avalanche are on a a three-game winning streak and sit only two points out of the first Wild Card playoff spot in the Western Conference.

The Avs are going to have a hard time pushing the streak to four as they will head to Nashville this afternoon to take on the Predators. A Colorado win today will even the season series at two.

Colorado Avalanche

This looks like a completely different team than the one we saw through December and January. A few weeks ago they started playing better and this week the wins have begun to show up.

The experiment to break up the big three is paying off as the team no has multiple lines that can fill the score sheet. The duo of Carl Soderberg and Mikko Rantanen has looked great while Gabriel Landeskog seems to be the perfect fit next to Tyson Jost.

Now maybe it’s time Joe Sakic went out and found one more winger to give Nathan MacKinnon a running mate for his 5v5 ice time.

Forwards

Alexander Kerfoot - Nathan MacKinnon - Sven Andrighetto

Matt Nieto - Carl Soderberg - Mikko Rantanen

Gabriel Landeskog - Tyson Jost - Matt Calvert

A.J. Greer - Andrew Agozzino - J.T. Compher

Defense

Samuel Girard - Erik Johnson

Ryan Graves - Tyson Barrie

Patrik Nemeth - Nikita Zadorov

Nashville Predators

The Predators come into today’s game having won three of their last four games and sitting one point behind Winnipeg for first in the Central. Rumors are running rampant that Nashville is making a big push to add a top-six forward to the lineup before Monday’s trade deadline.

After missing out on Matt Duchene, it sounds like the team has set their sights on Kevin Hayes of the New York Rangers.

This is one of the best defensive teams in the league, so if they are able to add another threat to their top-six, they could finally make that next step in their quest for a Cup.

Forwards

Filip Forsberg - Ryan Johansen - Kevin Fiala

Calle Jarnkrok - Kyle Turris - Viktor Arvidsson

Brian Boyle - Nick Bonino - Ryan Hartman

Cody McLeod - Colton Sissons - Rocco Grimaldi

Defense

Roman Josi - Ryan Ellis

Mattias Ekholm - P.K. Subban

Dan Hamhuis - Matt Irwin

Starting Goalies

With Semyon Varlamov playing last night, it will be Philipp Grubauer in net for the second half of the back-to-back. This will be his first start since February 2nd. With Varlamov playing a lot better these days, Grubauer is going to need to prove he can be a reliable backup.

For Nashville we are likely to see Pekka Rinne. The defending Vezina Trophy winner comes into the game with a 22-15-3 record and a .917 sv%.