Updated Colorado Avalanche Gameday: Grubauer, Rantanen, and Donskoi are IN

The Avalanche: (31-12-4)
The Opponent: San Jose Sharks (20-24-5)
Puck drop: 7:00 p.m. MT
Watch: ALT, NBCSCA+
Listen: [Radio] Altitude 92.5, AM 950

Colorado Avalanche

After dropping the last 3 games to the Blues and Golden Knights, Colorado is eager to right the ship at home against San Jose. With some uncertainty regarding who will be re-joining the lineup after Joonas Donskoi, Mikko Rantanen, & Philipp Grubauer were removed from the COVID list, it is hard to say who will slot into the lineup for tonight’s action. If Grubauer can’t go, then Devan Dubnyk may get to face his former club whom he was a member of just a few months ago. Brandon Saad will be out 2-4 weeks with his injury, so barring any changes today the squad will look similar to that of last game against VGK.

Projected Lineup

Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Andre Burakovsky
TBD - Nazem Kadri - JT Compher
Carl Soderberg - Tyson Jost - Val Nichushkin
Liam O’Brien - Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - Kiefer Sherwood

Samuel Girard - Devon Toews
Ryan Graves - Cale Makar
Patrik Nemeth - Conor Timmins

Devan Dubnyk (unconfirmed)
Philipp Grubauer

San Jose Sharks

Coming off two wins against Arizona to keep them in contention for the final playoff spot, San Jose will undoubtedly be looking to play one of their best games of the season against the Avs who are in the midst of their few losing streaks this season. However, they are 2-7-1 in their last 10 away games which bodes well for Colorado looking to bounce back.

The roster does not feature a lot of the names we had become accustomed to seeing for the Sharks in years past, but all teams must go through change in order to find success in the league these days. Evander Kane has been the best player for the sharks this season, with 20 goals, & 22 assists for 42 points in 49 games played.

Projected Lineup

Alexander Barabanov — Tomas Hertl — Evander Kane
Rudolfs Balcers — Logan Couture — John Leonard
Kevin Labanc — Alexander True — Noah Gregor
Timo Meier — Patrick Marleau — Joachim Blichfeld

Mario Ferraro — Brent Burns
Nikolai Knyzhov — Erik Karlsson
Brinson Pasichnuk — Marc-Edouard Vlasic

Martin Jones (unconfirmed)
Josef Korenar

Goaltending Matchup

Philipp Grubauer will (hopefully) make his return to the crease for the Avs, after missing the last 5 games due to being put on the COVID list. He had been dominant for the Avs, and will be a key part in helping stabilize things for a squad that is desperate to continue climbing the standings coming into the stretch.

For San Jose, Martin Jones will get the start. Jones is now winless in his last six starts (0-5-1) and owns an .896 save percentage for the year. This could be the make or break matchup the Avs can exploit tonight to get back into the win Column.

GO AVS!

UPDATE:

Here are the lines: