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Colorado Avalanche: 4-3-0
San Jose Sharks: 3-4-0
Puck Drop: 7:00 p.m. MT
Watch: Altitude, NBCSCA
Listen: Altitude 92.5, AM 950
The Colorado Avalanche will face off in their second contest against the San Jose Sharks this evening and will look to build off of a strong, balanced offensive attack from Tuesday night that saw 14 different Avalanche players register a point.
Colorado Avalanche
The Avalanche finally had their breakthrough game with many of the lucky bounces that had eluded them in frustrating losses on the road last week finally come their way. A player from each forward line was able to register a point in some capacity and most importantly, the depth scoring finally began to show — and it showed in bunches as the second and third lines accounted for four of the team’s seven goals on the night. The team will look to build on this strong, balanced play from their middle six.
The Avs were dealt a dose of unfortunate news on the injury front on Wednesday as Head Coach Jared Bednar announced that forward Matt Calvert’s injury status has been downgraded from day-to-day to out indefinitely (upper body). The Avs will sorely miss Calvert as he has been a steady, hard-nosed presence on the team and was fifth in total ice time per game prior to missing Tuesday’s contest. Let’s hope his injury is nothing too serious and that he is able to get back into the lineup relatively soon.
Matt Calvert is out indefinitely with an upper body injury, coach Jared Bednar said. #Avs
— Peter Baugh (@Peter_Baugh) January 27, 2021
Something to keep an eye on is how Coach Bednar decides to shuffle his defensive pairings prior to game time. Defenseman Ryan Graves was dealt a game misconduct penalty in the late stages of Tuesday’s 7-3 blowout win. The penalty came moments after Graves was sent off to the penalty box for his second hooking call of the game — to which he took issue and made it known to the officials. This is a bad look for a player who appears to be on thin ice with his coach. Graves logged exactly 15 minutes of ice time on Tuesday night — the lowest total of all Avs defensemen. While Bednar wouldn’t comment on the specifics of what his lineup would be, it wouldn’t be surprising of we saw Conor Timmins get the nod in favor of Graves tonight.
On a positive note, forward Mikko Rantanen is riding a six-game goal streak heading into tonight’s game and will look to continue his hot steak. With his goal on Tuesday, Rantanen entered elite company as only the fifth Avalanche player since the inaugural 1995-96 season to register a goal in six straight games.
Let’s hope the sound crew at Ball Arena gets ample opportunity to blast Baby Shark from the speakers as the Avs skate off with another win.
Projected Lines
Forwards
Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen
Brandon Saad - Nazem Kadri - Andre Burakovsky
Joonas Donskoi - JT Compher - Valeri Nichushkin
Tyson Jost - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Kiefer Sherwood
Defense
Devon Toews - Cale Makar
Bowen Byram - Samuel Girard
Ryan Graves - Erik Johnson
Goaltenders
Philipp Grubauer
Hunter Miska
San Jose Sharks
The San Jose Sharks will be playing in their eighth straight road game to start the season tonight. So far, the team has been unable to play games at their home SAP Center due to local COVID-19 restrictions set in place by Santa Clara County officials. This has forced the Sharks to start (and remain) on the road in the early going.
The team will be playing a set of games on February 1st and 3rd in Glendale, Arizona when they face off against the Vegas Golden Knights. These two contests will serve as “home” games for the Sharks squad. The team did, however, receive a dose of good news on Wednesday as it was announced that they will be able to return to SAP center beginning February 13th for their game against the Anaheim Ducks and the remaining 2020-21 home games.
WE'RE COMING HOME!
— San Jose Sharks (@SanJoseSharks) January 28, 2021
The Sharks are returning to @SAPCenter for home games starting February 13.https://t.co/hq0ZuZTEOo
The Avalanche chased Goaltender Martin Jones from the net on Tuesday night as they potted five goals on 19 total shots. Backup Devin Dubnyk stopped 21 of 23 shots in relief. Neither Jones nor Dubnyk have been stellar to start the season so it’s basically a toss up for who will be backstopping the Sharks tonight. Our bet: Dubnyk.
Projected Lines (According to Fear the Fin)
Forwards
Ryan Donato - Logan Couture - Kevin Lebanc
John Leonard - Tomas Hertl - Evander Kane
Noah Gregor - Dylan Gambrell - Timo Meier
Marcus Sorensen - Patrick Marleau - Matt Nieto
Defense
Marc-Edouard Vlasic - Brent Burns
Mario Ferraro - Erik Karlsson
Nikolai Knyzhov - Radim Simek
Goaltenders
Devin Dubnyk
Martin Jones