After their home opener on Thursday night, which saw the Colorado Avalanche take on the Utah Mammoth, the Avs remain perfect on the season, as they defeated Utah by a final score of 2-1. Tonight, they face a team that they’ve gotten, for better or for worse, all too familiar with in the past couple of seasons, as the Dallas Stars come to Denver for a divisional matchup. This will be the first regular season game between these two teams.
Colorado Avalanche: 2-0-0
The Opponent: Dallas Stars (1-0-0)
Time: 7:00 p.m. MT
Watch: Altitude
Sports, KTVD-TV (My20), Victory+, ESPN+
Listen: Altitude Sports Radio, 92.5 FM
Colorado Avalanche
Up until this point, the Avs have looked pretty darn good in the two games that they’ve played against the LA Kings and the Utah Mammoth. Everything’s just been clicking for Colorado in these two games so far. Your superstars have done superstar things of course, with Cale Makar walking a Kings defender at the blueline on opening night, and Nathan MacKinnon having the game-winning goal for the Avs against the Mammoth in the home opener. On top of that, however, you’ve gotten some pretty solid depth production as well, with your third line scoring an absoltuely gorgeous goal to get Colorado on the scoreboard first on this past Thursday night.
And then there’s the elephant in the room, in the best way possible, which is Scott Wedgewood. The general thought going into him starting for Colorado in the absense of Mackenzie Blackwood was tht he’d certainly be able to hold his own and give the Avs a chance to win games. That being said, I don’t think anyone really anticipated him playing at such a high level through these two games. He’s been able to bail Colorado out at just about every turn in these two games, with his only two allowed goals coming on the powerplay, I just don’t know how you can’t be happy with his performance. While you’d obviously like the Avs to play and score at such a level that they don’t need Wedgewood bailing them out at every turn, it definitely feels good to have such high confidence in your goaltender, if and when breakdowns inevitably happen at one point or another. Colorado will certainly need Wedgewood to perform well again tonight against an insanely talented, and deep, Dallas Stars team.
Projected Lineup
Artturi Lehkonen — Nathan MacKinnon — Martin Necas
Gabe Landeskog — Brock Nelson — Valeri Nichushkin
Ross Colton — Jack Drury — Viktor Olofsson
Joel Kiviranta — Parker Kelly — Gavin Brindley
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Sam Girard — Josh Manson
Sam Malinski — Brent Burns
Scott Wedgewood
Trent Miner
Dallas Stars
Dallas comes into this game off of a 5-4 win over the Winnipeg Jets, which saw the Stars have a 5-1 lead over the Jets with about 10 minutes left in regularion, before the Jets would score three unanswered goals to pull within one. As mentioned earlier, this Dallas team is one that Colorado has become all too familiar with over the past couple of seasons, as this is the team that has eliminated Colorado in the playoffs the past two seasons.
If you’re Colorado, it might be encouraging that Winnipeg was able to make a comeback bid late in the third period during this game, and ultimately pull within one goal. And while that optimism might be founded, make no mistake, this is not a team that you want to play from behind against, under any circumstances. Dallas is very much a legitemate Stanley Cup contendor this season, as they have been the last few seasons, and they can definitely play effective “bend don’t break” hockey, which is what they did against Winnipeg to seal the win. This is also a team who is very well balanced across all four lines and all three defensive pairings, and the Avs will need their depth to make plays like they did against Utah to keep up with the Stars. They have a very good starting goaltender in Jake Oettinger as well, hence the mention of Wedgewood needing to keep up his current level of play. This is a team that is overall very well balanced, and that has no insane weakesses on their roster. This will be a very tough litmus test early in the season for the Avalanche. Hopefully, they’re up for the task.
Projected Lineup
Jason Robertson – Roope Hintz – Mikko Rantanen
Wyatt Johnston – Matt Duchene – Tyler Seguin
Mavrik Bourque – Sam Steel – Colin Blackwell
Justin Hryckowian – Radek Faksa – Nathan Bastian
Esa Lindell – Miro Heiskanen
Thomas Harley – Nils Lundkvist
Lian Bichsel – Ilya Lyubushkin
Jake Oettinger
Casey DeSmith
