Colorado Avalanche Game Day: Do or die

Winning the Stanley Cup is never easy. It’s one of the hardest things to do in sports. They also say, you’re never in trouble until you lose at home. Well, the Avalanche lost at home in Game 5, and have given all the momentum back to the Vegas Golden Knights who, like the Avalanche, were next to impossible to beat at home this season.

But the Avalanche will need to find a way.

For the Avalanche the room for error is now gone. All the excuses have faded away and it’s time to put your words into actions. The task at hand, win a road game in Vegas to keep your season alive. Simple right? Nothing more than making sure by the end of the game, you have at least one more goal than Vegas.

“We’re a really good hockey team, they’re a really good hockey team. You’ve got to go lay it all on the line. Play your game, play fearless and chips will fall where they fall.” Said Jared Bednar in his press conference before departing for Vegas.

In order to win tonight, the Avalanche are going to need their best players to be the best players. Nathan Mackinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, Cale Makar and Philipp Grubauer must lead the way.

In the last three games against Vegas, they have a combine one goal and three assists. That needs to change. It quite simply is not good enough. The top line has to play against

“I don’t see any reason why our team can’t play with the same attack mentality that we has last night and go in there and get the job done.”

When facing elimination in each of the last two seasons, this Avalanche team has won both ‘do or die” game sixes they have faced. They beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3 in overtime two years ago and then knocked off the Dallas Stars 4-1 last year in the bubble. The core of this group was playing in those games, so it gives you hope that they have been here before.

Goaltenders

With everything on the line, we are going to see Marc-Andre Fleury and Philipp Grubauer in net once again tonight. Both these guys have the ability to steal the game tonight.

**We will update the preview with any lineup news as it arises throughout the day