Colorado Avalanche Gameday: Saturday night in Vegas

The Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights are both on the second night of a back-to-back. For the Avs, it’s their second back-to-back in Las Vegas as the second game in a matter of weeks.

Both teams are coming in heading in opposite directions. The Avs have won their last two in dominating fashion, while the Knights have lost four of their last five. Tonight will be big for both sides to get a win.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avs played last night against the Winnipeg Jets and might be tired. After that shaky first period, they poured it on with six unanswered goals in a 6-3 win.

This was thanks to the leadership of the team. Gabriel Landeskog recorded his second hat trick of the season, both of them coming against the Jets. Nathan MacKinnon was a crossbar shot away from his own hat trick.

They will look to come back to Vegas and win once again. While the big guys have been moving, it would be nice to get some additional depth scoring consistently tonight and past this game as well.

Projected Forwards

Andre Burakovsky (95) - Nathan MacKinnon (29) - Mikko Rantanen (96)

Gabriel Landeskog (92) - Nazem Kadri (91) - Valeri Nichushkin (13)

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

Darren Helm (43) - Tyson Jost (17) - Kurtis MacDermid (56)

Projected Defenders

Devon Toews (7) - Cale Makar (8)

Jack Johnson (3) - Samuel Girard (49)

Ryan Murray (28) - Erik Johnson (6)

Vegas Golden Knights

The Knights are now in the thick of the battle in the Pacific. Having lost four of their last five games, they are now at risk of falling not just out of the race for the Pacific Division, but into the wild card race.

They lost in disastrous fashion last night away to the Arizona Coyotes 3-1. They need to turn things around in a big way and tonight would be a really good night to do that against a really good Avs team.

The Knights are missing the leadership and power their captain Mark Stone has. He holds it altogether, but can’t do it at the moment. For now, it will be Jack Eichel looking to lead his new team back in the right direction to climb up the standings.

Projected Forwards

Max Pacioretty (67) - Jack Eichel (9) - Chandler Stephenson (20)

Evgenni Dadonov (63) - William Karlsson (71) - Reilly Smith (19)

Mattias Janmark (26) - Nicolas Roy (10) - Mike Amadio (22)

Will Carrier (28) - Brett Howden (21) - Keegan Kolesar (55)

Projected Defenders

Ben Hutton (17) - Alex Pietrangelo (7)

Brayden McNabb (3) - Shea Theodore (27)

Nicolas Hague (14) - Zach Whitecloud (2)

Goaltending

Darcy Kuemper will get the start with Pavel Francouz playing last night. The same will go for Logan Thompson after Laurent Brossoit played last night in Arizona.