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The Avalanche: (42-20-8) / (7-4-1)
The Opponent: Dallas Stars: (37-24-8) / (8-5-0)
Puck drop: 7:45 p.m. MT
Watch: NBCSN, Sportsnet, TVA Sports, NHL.tv
Listen: Altitude 92.5, AM 950
The task at hand for the Colorado Avalanche tonight is very simple - win or go home. After dropping Game 5 last night, the Avs now face elimination as they trail the Dallas Stars 3-1 in their best of seven series.
After going more than 18 minutes without a shot at the start of Game 4, the Avs found some life in the second and third periods. Unfortunately, it was not enough to overcome the 3-0 hole they found themselves in.
The team will need to play a complete 60 minutes tonight if they hope to force a Game 6 on Wednesday.
Colorado Avalanche
The coaching staff won’t talk about any lineup changes before the game but it’s safe to assume that he’s going to ride with the guys who got them there - live and die with the lineup they’ve been playing.
Unfortunately, Coach Bednar said after last night’s game that the injured players won’t be around for Game 5:
“They’re not ready. They’re not an option for us. We’re not going to play injured players who can’t play.”
Projected Lines
Forwards
Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen
Andre Burakovsky - Nazem Kadri - Valeri Nichushkin
Tyson Jost - JT Compher - Vladislav Namestnikov
Matt Nieto - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Logan O’Connor
Defence
Ryan Graves - Cale Makar
Samuel Girard - Ian Cole
Kevin Connauton - Nikita Zadorov
Goaltending
Pavel Francouz
Michael Hutchinson
Dallas Stars
For those who think athletes and sports reporters should “stick to sports”, Sean Shapiro who covers the Stars for The Athletic wrote a note to address how most in the industry feel about it:
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Projected Lines from Last Game
Forwards
Jamie Benn - Tyler Seguin - Alexander Radulov
Mattias Janmark - Joe Pavelski - Denis Gurianov
Andrew Cogliano - Radek Faksa - Blake Comeau
Roope Hintz - Jason Dickinson - Corey Perry
Defence
Esa Lindell - John Klingberg
Jamie Oleksiak - Miro Heiskanen
Andrej Sekera - Taylor Fedun
Goaltending
Anton Khudobin