|
Penguins look to make it three in a row against Colorado |
|
|
|
|
|
The Pittsburgh Penguins will face off against another Western Conference team this evening when they take on the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche are a team in transition at the moment. The past few years they have had some nice top end talent, but unfortunately were one of the most unstructured teams in the NHL. As a result, their ability to drive possession was in shambles much like their defensive zone coverage.
This year they have a new head coach in Jared Bednar who is replacing Patrick Roy. It would be hard to believe that the change won't be a positive. Roy's teams underachieved and a lot of it could be traced back to the systems (or lack thereof) that he was responsible for. Colorado is a good candidate to have a bounce back year. The bad news for them is that they play in the hardest division in hockey so their improvement may or may not come in the form of many more victories.
The Avalanche played their first game of the year on Saturday against the Dallas Stars and won 6-5. Joe Colborne was one of their new additions this year and he registered a hat trick. New defenseman Patrick Wiercioch was on the ice for 17 shot attempts for and only 13 against. Nate MacKinnon was dominant on the possession front to go along with his goal and assist. Look for MacKinnon to be excellent this year with the coaching change. These are all nice signs for Avalanche fans to see one game into the season. Colorado even won on the possession front 48-45 in even-strength shot attempts which is nothing to sneeze at against the Dallas Stars.
Dallas and Pittsburgh share a similar approach to attacking their opponents so we could be looking at another game filled with goals which would be great on the entertainment front.
Here is what the Avalanche will look like tonight:
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Jarome Iginla
Mikhail Grigorenko -- Carl Soderberg -- Matt Duchene
Gabriel Bourque -- Joe Colborne -- Rene Bourque
Andreas Martinsen -- Ben Smith -- Blake Comeau
Nikita Zadorov -- Erik Johnson
Francois Beauchemin -- Tyson Barrie
Fedor Tyutin -- Patrick Wiercioch
It will be Calvin Pickard and not Semyon Varlamov will be in net for Colorado. For the Colorado perspective head here
It does not appear there will be any changes to the Penguins lineup.
As far as the Penguins roster for tonight goes it will not be including Sidney Crosby. He is still practicing before the team but has yet to take part in contact. To this point there is no knowledge of any setbacks.
Pittsburgh picked up Mike Condon from the waiver wire as a result of the Matt Murray injury. Tonight looked like the first opportunity for him to make his Penguins debut. It won’t be happening. Marc-Andre Fleury is going to get the start in goal. Today and tomorrow is the first back to back situation of the year and it might be the only one before Murray is ready to return. Given Marc-Andre Fleury's history of playing around 65 games per year (when healthy) he will probably play in every single non back to back situation. The Penguins will be playing Montreal tomorrow and if Condon doesn’t get that start I’m not sure where he slots in. I wouldn’t completely rule out Fleury playing in back to back games considering how important playing in Montreal is to French-Canadian players. However, Pittsburgh’s decision with its goaltending may be based on the Carey Price news from today.
When the Penguins face the Canadiens tomorrow it isn’t likely going to feature Carey Price. He has had the flu and tried to practice today. He left the practice and did not return. Between Anaheim missing Lindholm and Rakell and Montreal not having Price the Penguins have caught some early season breaks from the opponent's roster while they try to navigate their schedule without Sidney Crosby. Perhaps the Penguins feel more comfortable giving Condon the start against the Priceless Canadiens in the city he played in last year.
Matt Murray is close to returning to practice according to Mike Sullivan. He practiced with Sidney Crosby today. It is looking like Murray is going to be closer to the three-week diagnosis than the six week one. Fleury has played well so far and it will be very interesting to see how Mike Sullivan handles the playing time when both goaltenders are healthy and available.
Marc-Andre Fleury was the only Penguin to make Dom Luszczyszyn’s weekly recap of game scores. He has come up with an individual player grading system which I think is pretty cool and its just another way to look at player evaluation. Here is the list:
I always enjoy passing along information which tells us how awesome Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin are so I’m going to do just that
Bryan Rust is skating with his teammates and Head Coach Mike Sullivan has mentioned that he is closer to returning than Crosby. He described him as being really close to a coach’s decision. Sounds like he could make his season debut tomorrow. Adding Rust and removing Sestito would be a big improvement to the roster.
Pittsburgh looks to make it 3-0 tonight.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»