Preview: Avalanche look to extend winning streak to a season-high in Seattle

The Avalanche have been riding hot. Five straight wins and they have all come by a margin of three goals or more. Today they face a real test. Colorado will head down the coast to Seattle to face the Pacific Division-leading Seattle Kraken. With it being the second game of a back-to-back, the Avalanche have their work cut out for them.

Colorado made their way into a wild card spot after last night's win over Vancouver. Currently, they sit three points behind the Minnesota Wild for the third spot in the division. Easy to say that they need all the points they can get. The Avs current goal should be to climb as high as they can in the standings by the time defensemen Bowen Byram and Josh Manson can return from the injury list. If they can get into a divisional spot by the time those two return things should be looking good for the team. Getting any points tonight should be a great help in achieving that goal.

Colorado Avalanche

Things seem pretty set in stone for the Avalanche as far as lineups go for the foreseeable future. Colorado clearly likes what they have when they are rolling an 11 forward seven defenseman lineup. The only question when it comes to that is what seven defensemen will play. Jared Bednar commented on Cale Makar’s status and availability for tonight’s game yesterday, and he made it seem like the idea was for Makar to jump back into the lineup. It’s hard to say for certain because Bednar, as always, was very cryptic, but the general consensus seems to be that Makar will make his return tonight.

Projected Lineup

Artturi Lehkonen (62) - Nathan MacKinnon (29) - Evan Rodrigues (9)

Val Nichushkin (13) - J.T. Compher (37) - Mikko Rantanen (96)

Andrew Cogliano (11) - Alex Newhook (18 - Logan O’Connor (25)

Anton Blidh (36) - Ben Meyers (59)

Devon Toews (7) - Cale Makar (8)

Samuel Girard (49) - Erik Johnson (6)

Brad Hunt (17) - Kurtis MacDermid (56)

Andreas Englund (88)

Pavel Francouz (39)

Seattle Kraken

The Kraken has been riding hot lately. Up until last week, they boasted an eight-game win streak that featured a shutout over the league-leading Boston Bruins. They ended it with back-to-back losses against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Edmonton Oilers, but they bounced back with a 4-3 OT win over the New Jersey Devils. Things have been going well for the Kraken, but now they’ve seemed to hit an injury patch of their own. Jaden Schwartz is set to miss his fifth consecutive game with an undisclosed injury. Defenseman Justin Schultz is set to miss his second straight game, also with an undisclosed injury (which seems to be a theme in Seattle). According to Dave Hakstol one of ex-Av Andre Burakovsky and Alexander Wennberg will play tonight, the other will be a game-time decision. So, hard to really say what the Kraken are going to send out tonight.

Andre Burakovsky (95) - Matty Beniers (10) - Jordan Eberle (7)

Ryan Donato (7) - Alexander Wennberg (21) - Jared McCann (19)

Eeli Tolvanen (20) - Yanni Gourde (37) - Oliver Bjorkstrand (22)

Brandon Tanev (13) - Morgan Geekie (67) - Daniel Sprong (91)

Vince Dunn (29) - Adam Larsson (6)

Jamie Oleksiak (24) - Will Borgen (3)

Carson Soucy (28) - Cale Fleury (8)

Philip Grubauer (31)

Starting Goalies

Alexandar Georgiev got the start in Vancouver last night, and despite his low workload in that game it’s safe to say Avalanche backup Pavel Francouz will get the start against Seattle, his third straight against the young team. It is confirmed that Philip Grubauer will get the start against his former team, his fourth straight against his former team.