Colorado Avalanche Gameday: Records on the line to end January

The Colorado Avalanche play host to the Buffalo Sabres tonight in a weekend end cap. Each team finds themselves on opposite ends of their respective conference standings, with the Sabres in particular looking to turn things around.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avalanche still remain hot both at home and on the road. They currently are on a win streak of nine straight games, including 17 straight wins at home. They look to make it 18 tonight and celebrate like a teenager would for their 18th birthday too.

The Avalanche boast a 14-0-1 record in the month of January, with the only blemish of course coming out of Nashville earlier in the month. They look to tie an NHL record of 15 wins in a month tonight without All-Star Nathan MacKinnon, who’s had surgery to repair his broken nose and cheekbone. He remains out past this weekend’s All-Star festivities.

Coming off of their hard-fought 6-4 win Friday night against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Avs will roll with the same lineup as they had on Friday and continue the hot streaks that both Gabriel Landeskog and Nazem Kadri are individually on.

Forwards

Gabriel Landeskog (92) - Mikko Rantanen (96) - Valeri Nichushkin (13)

Tyson Jost (17) - Nazem Kadri (91) - Andre Burakovsky (95)

J.T. Compher (37) - Alex Newook (18) - Logan O’Connor (25)

Dylan Sikura (9) - Mikhail Maltsev (11) - Nicolas Aube-Kubel (16)

Defenders

Devon Toews (7) - Cale Makar (8)

Jack Johnson (3) - Samuel Girard (49)

Kurtis MacDermid (56) - Erik Johnson (6)

Buffalo Sabres

Tonight’s affair is the second of a back-to-back for the Sabres, who played last night against the Arizona Coyotes. They come out of the desert victorious 3-1 in this four game road trip they are on.

However, things have not been pretty for the Sabres in general. Outside of their whole Jack Eichel trade and injury dilemma, the on-ice product has been lacking for the upstate New York squad. They sit in sixth place in the Atlantic Division, almost 20 points outside of the playoff picture.

The Sabres are also dealing with a lot of COVID troubles at the moment as well. They will be depleted from last night’s game in Phoenix and shorthanded against the hottest team in the league tonight. Newcomer Alex Tuch, part of the Eichel trade, will look to get his team their second straight win despite the issues they have off-ice.

Forwards

Jeff Skinner (53) - Tage Thompson (72) - Alex Tuch (89)

Peyton Krebs (19) - Casey Mittelstadt (37) - Anders Bjork (96)

Will Butcher (4) - Dylan Cozens (24) - John Hayden (15)

Mark Jankowski (17) - Cody Eakin (20) - Kyle Okposo (21)

Defenders

Jacob Bryson (78) - Henri Jokiharju (10)

Mattias Samuelsson (23) - Casey Fitzgerald (45)

Robert Hagg (8) - Mark Pysyk (13)

Goaltending

The Avs have been flip-flopping goaltenders for a few games now. With Pavel Francouz starting Friday, it’ll be Darcy Kuemper getting the start. For the Sabres, Craig Anderson started last night so their number two goalie Dustin Tokarsi will likely start.