Coming off of their first regulation loss of the season against the Boston Bruins yesterday, Colorado gets a chance to bounce back quickly, as they take on the New Jersey Devils today on the second leg
of a back-to-back. This will be the first of two regular season matchups between these two teams.
Colorado Avalanche (5-1-3)
As previously mentioned, Colorado was finally handed their first regulation loss yesterday by the Boston Bruins. It was ultimately a game that saw the Avs just make one too many mistakes, and those mistakes wond up in the back of their net, while Jeremy Swayman stopped everything that they threw at him on the other end of the ice.
The powerplay continued to be highlighted yesterday, the worst way possible, as they failed to convert on any of their man-advantage opportunities once again. Hopefully, the powerplay will get fixed as time goes on, as it’s a bit ridiculous that a powerplay with MacKinnon and Makar on it is this bad right now, but it’s just not happening right now. The powerplay not converting is going to make competing with this Devils team just that more difficult here today.
Projected Lineup
Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Martin Necas
Gabriel Landeskog – Brock nelson – Valeri Nichushkin
Ross Colton – Jack Drury – Victor Olofsson
Parker Kelly – Zakhar Bardakov – Gavin Brindley
Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Josh Manson – Brent Burns
Ilya Solovyov – Sam Malinski
Trent Miner
Scott Wedgewood
New Jersey Devils (7-1-0)
The Devils come into this game off of a 3-1 win over the San Jose Sharks on Friday. While it’s still very early in the season, this New Jersey team is already looking like the team that everyone expected them to be last year, given the lineup and talent that they have. They currently sit atop the Metropolitan Division, in part thanks to their superstar forward, Jack Hughes, putting up 10 points in eight games so far. Again, it’s still very early in the season at this point, and the Devils will likely go through some struggles of their own, but they look really good right now, and trying to keep pace with them offensively, especially with Colorado’s continued powerplay woes, will be easier said than done.
Projected Lineup
Ondrej Palat – Jack Hughes – Jesper Bratt
Timo Meier – Nico Hischier – Arseny Gritsyuk
Paul Cotter – Dawson Mercer – Connor Brown
Stefan Noesen – Luke Glendening – Brian Halonen
Luke Hughes – Brett Pesce
Jonas Siegenthaler – Dougie Hamilton
Brenden Dillon – Simon Nemec
Jake Allen
Nico Daws
