Preview: Jets look to keep Avalanche stumbling
Photo by Jonathan Kozub/NHLI via Getty Images
The Avs will look to steer back into the win column.
The Colorado Avalanche wrap up their final long road trip tonight away to the Winnipeg Jets. The wrap-up of their three-game road trip includes their final visit to Canada in the regular season.
Colorado is in a slump at the moment with three straight losses. While the slump is not great, all of these games are glorified preseason games with no purpose. The Avs are resting their guys en route to the playoffs next week.
Colorado Avalanche
The Avs are coming off another disappointing loss away to the Edmonton Oilers. They fell 6-3 at Rogers Place Friday night with the Oilers clinching a playoff spot. It left a sore spot in Avs fans' hearts to watch another disappointing performance.
However, with the squad missing several key names, it makes sense. It’s looked like October 2021 when the Avs were missing multiple players due to injury. The absence of some is clearly affecting them from Gabriel Landeskog to Devon Toews.
Valeri Nichushkin has continued his career season with a couple of goals in Edmonton. He will look to do the same from the first line once again tonight with the help of Nazem Kadri working his way into game pace. There’s still no word on the status of Mikko Rantanen.
Projected Forwards
Andre Burakovsky (95) - Nathan MacKinnon (29) - Valeri Nicushkin (13)
Artturi Lehkonen (62) - Nazem Kadri (91) - J.T. Compher (37)
Alex Newhook (18) - Nico Sturm (78) - Nicolas Aube-Kubel (16)
Andrew Cogliano (11) - Darren Helm (43) - Logan O’Connor (25)
Projected Defenders
Bowen Byram (4) - Cale Makar (8)
Samuel Girard (49) - Josh Manson (42)
Jack Johnson (3) - Kurtis MacDermid (56)
Winnipeg Jets
The Jets are coming off of a loss of their own too, away to the Carolina Hurricanes 4-2 on Thursday night. This set of games for the Jets is certainly not ideal on how to end their season.
Already eliminated from playoff contention, the team should've done more and probably been better. With a Vezina-caliber netminder like Connor Hellebuyck, you’d think the team would get the job done in front of him.
Instead, after losing Andrew Copp at the trade deadline and having an injured Mark Scheifele, the Jets are just hoping for the season to end. But they will look to keep the Avs slumped with an early evening win on home ice.
Projected Forwards
Kyle Connor (81) - Paul Stastny (25) - Nikolaj Ehlers (27)
Zach Sanford (13) - Pierre-Luc Dubois (80) - Blake Wheeler (26)
Morgan Barron (36) - Adam Lowry (17) - Mason Appleton (22)
Jansen Harkins (12) - Dominic Tomatino (21) - Evgeny Svechnikov (71)
Projected Defenders
Josh Morrissey (44) - Dylan Demelo (2)
Nate Schmidt (88) - Neal Pionk (4)
Dylan Samberg (54) - Brenden Dillon (5)
Goaltending
The Avs lost Pavel Francouz after he took a puck to the face sitting on the bench. The Avs called up Justus Annunen from the Colorado Eagles and he may very well get the start to continue to rest Darcy Kuemper. For the Hellebuyck-less Jets, it should be Eric Comrie going in net.
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