Colorado Avalanche Game Day: One more in St. Louis

A couple of streaks were broken when the St. Louis Blues beat the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday afternoon. The Blues won their first game in their last four while handing the Avalanche their first loss since April 7th.

After splitting the first two games in the series, the Avalanche will look to get back in the win column before heading to Vegas for a game with the Golden Knights on Wednesday.

Colorado Avalanche

With a win and a Vegas loss tonight, the Avalanche would leave St. Louis only two points back of the lead in the West Division.

The Avs played well on Saturday, unfortunately, goaltending made a difference. After being spotted a quick 2-0 lead, Devan Dubnyk did not do enough to help the Avalanche win the game - despite them badly outplaying in the Blues at 5v5.

Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon led the way with three points each as the Avs best players did what they needed to do. Tonight we’ll need to see more than 20 saves if the team hopes to leave St. Louis with a series win.

After getting hurt on Saturday, Brandon Saad will be out of the lineup for 2-4 weeks. Martin Kaut has been moved up into the top-9 to take his place.

Projected Lineup

Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Andre Burakovsky

Carl Soderberg - Tyson Jost- Val Nichushkin

Martin Kaut - Nazem Jadri - JT. Compher

Liam O’Brien - Pierre Edouard Bellemare - Kiefer Sherwood

Samuel Girard - Devon Toews

Ryan Graves - Cale Makar

Patrick Nemeth - Conor Timmins

St. Louis Blues

Ryan O’Reilly was absolutely dominant against the Avalanche in their last game. He single-handedly put the team on his back, scoring a hat trick while adding an assist.Ivan Barbashev and Mike Hoffman scored the other two goals for St. Louis as they were able to score their way out of the 2-0 hole they found themselves in early.

Another win tonight will be huge as the Blues as it could pull them into the final playoff spot in the West Division.

Projected Lineup

Samuel Blais - Ryan O’Reilly - David Perron

Jaden Schwartz - Brayden Schenn - Vladmir Tarasenko

Zach Sanford - Tyler Bozak - Robert Thomas

Kyle Clifford - Ivan Barbashev - Jordan Kyrou

Torey Krug - Justin Faulk

Marco Scandella - Vince Dunn

Jake Walman - Colton Parayko

Goaltending

After a less than stellar performance from Dubnyk on Saturday, we should expect Jonas Johansson to get the call tonight. JoJo comes into the game with a .929 sv% in five appearances with the Avalanche.

Jordan Binnington will get his third straight start for the Blues. After a rocky first period Saturday, he settled in, stopping 28 of the last 29 shots he faced.