The Avalanche close out their four-game road trip Wednesday with their biggest game to date: facing the West Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena.
Here are the GAME NOTES.
The Avalanche (31-11-4, 66 points) trail Vegas (34-11-2) by four points with one game in hand. They are just one point ahead of third-place Minnesota (31-13-3), also with one game in hand.
The Wild will be home to St. Louis (21-19-6, 48 points), which is trying to hang onto the division’s fourth and final playoff spot.
“We’re putting a high importance on this game,… coach Jared Bednar said after the morning skate. “We’re fighting through some adversity here, so to me the most important thing is the habits and the process of us winning games and how we approach it and how we play.
“Our commitment to defend has to be there, the competitiveness has to be there and our habits have to be good. If we don’t get the result we want, then we’ll build off that game. It’s not necessarily a must-win for us, but we certainly want to play the right way and give ourselves the best chance to win tonight and keep this thing tightened right up. We’d be two points back with a game in hand and we still have another crack at these guys. We still have some runway left.…
The Avalanche, who are 3-2-1 against the Golden Knights this season, lost their last two games to the Blues; they have not lost three in a row this year.
While the Avalanche might welcome goalie Philipp Grubauer and forwards Mikko Rantanen and Joonas Donskoi back to the lineup Friday against the San Jose Sharks, Wednesday would be a good time for center Nazem Kadri to regain his scoring touch.
Kadri, who has 28 points (10 goals, 18 assists) in 46 games, has gone 16 games without a goal since scoring March 22 against Arizona.
“I’ve been around for a while and have had things like this happen, so I think it’s just a matter of sticking with it, working," he said. "Obviously over this stretch I’ve had some good looks, a lot of shots and chances, so it’s just a matter of getting that puck luck and finding a way to get me one to get me started.…
Center Nathan MacKinnon has had no such trouble. He’s matched his career high with a 14-game point streak (nine goals, 16 assists) that equals the longest streak in the NHL this season.
The Avalanche need one win to reach 1,000 since the franchise moved from Quebec for the 1995-96 season. They’ve gone 999-726-101 with 142 ties.
Bednar said defenseman Bowen Byram (upper body) and forward Logan O'Connor (lower body) have had setbacks in their recovery and are out week-to-week.
Forwards Brandon Saad (lower body) and Matt Calvert (upper body) remain out, along with defenseman Jacob MacDonald (lower body).
Goalie Pavel Francouz (hip surgery) won’t return until next season and defenseman Erik Johnson (upper body) might be available if the Avalanche have a long playoff run.
The lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Andre Burakovsky Tyson Jost -- Nazem Kadri -- Valeri Nichushkin Carl Soderberg -- J.T. Compher -- Kiefer Sherwood Liam O'Brien -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Martin Kaut
DEFENSE Devon Toews -- Samuel Girard Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar Patrik Nemeth -- Conor Timmins
GOALIES Devan Dubnyk Jonas Johansson