Open Thread: Colorado Avalanche @ Nashville Predators (6:00 p.m.)
Photo by Danny Murphy/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
It’s a Colorado Avalanche gameday! Exactly one week ago, it felt like the sky was falling on the Colorado Avalanche. They had lost five of their last seven by a combined score of 31-15, and were coming off what seemed to be their worst loss since the ignominious 48-point season, getting blown out of their own building by the St. Louis Blues, 8-2 and “quitting” according to Jared Bednar.
What a difference a week makes, as the Avs responded to the embarrassing Blues loss by cruising past newly-minted rival Seattle 5-1, destroying rebuilding Anaheim 8-2, and then winning the biggest game of the season with six unanswered goals in Dallas to come back from a 3-0 deficit this weekend.
Colorado Avalanche
The spark for this recent turnaround doesn’t seem like anything particularly obvious. The Avalanche are just playing better hockey and playing a more even-keel style. The St. Louis game was an unmitigated disaster, with players panicking left and right and creating and endless array of odd-man rushes. Against Dallas on Saturday night, the Avs had another opportunity to panic and get out of their game going down 3-0, but they stuck to their game and grinded their way back into it.
Toyota Game Recap: After ending the first period down by three goals the Avalanche started their comeback in the second ending the night with a 6-3 win. pic.twitter.com/YoKZgbrany— AltitudeTV (@AltitudeTV) November 19, 2023
It was the kind of hockey Avalanche fans have come to associate with this team, and it should be interesting to see if they can keep it up going into a game which has the potential to be a letdown game for the Avs. The lineup should stay the same as Saturday night as there is no new news on injured players like Josh Manson, although he could make a return, and Ryan Johansen will make his return to the city he spent last eight years in.
#Avs Ryan Johansen on returning to Nashville for Predators game tonight:“It’s weird, for sure. I’m not going to lie.” pic.twitter.com/nmWg2BnNh7— Kyle Fredrickson (@kylefredrickson) November 20, 2023
Projected Lineup:
Valeri Nichushkin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Jonathan Drouin — Ryan Johansen — Tomas Tatar
Miles Wood — Ross Colton — Logan O’Connor
Andrew Cogliano — Fredrik Olofsson — Joel Kiviranta
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Bo Byram — Sam Girard
Jack Johnson — Caleb Jones
Let us know what you think of the matchup in the comments!
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