Colorado Avalanche Open Thread: Colorado Avalanche vs. Minnesota Wild (6:00 p.m.)

The Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild face off in a rival division contest! Can the Avalanche continue dominating their division foes and securing another title? The answer to that question will begin to form tonight at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul Minnesota.

The tension surrounding this matchup is palpable this season as the Wild have improved over the last couple of years and have solidified themselves as a talented and difficult team to beat. The former Avalanche Tyson Jost will center Kirill Kaprizov and Matts Zucerello tonight and hopes to stick it to the club that traded him away just before hoisting the cup.

Fourteen of the eighteen players in Colorado’s lineup saw action in the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. The Avalanche haven’t shown us that they have gotten much better than the stellar team they were last season, but they certainly don't appear to be worse. How will they look against Filip Gustavsson - who will start for the first time this season - and the Wild?

PROJECTED LINEUP

Artturi Lehkonen — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Evan Rodrigues — Alex Newhook — Valeri Nichushkin
Andrew Cogliano — JT Compher — Logan O’Connor
Kurtis MacDermid — Lukas Sedlak — Ben Meyers

Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Samuel Girard — Josh Manson
Bowen Byram — Erik Johnson

Alexander Georgiev
Pavel Francouz

Note: Both Gabriel Landeskog and Darren Helm remain on injured reserve.

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