The Avalanche need to be wary about the New Jersey Devils when they meet Friday at the Pepsi Center.
The Avalanche are on a 7-0-1 roll and have 20 more points than the Devils, who are 0-5-1 in their past six games, 0-3-1 since Alain Nasreddine replaced John Hynes as coach.
You could call this a “trap… game, considering the Avalanche are in St. Louis on Monday for a pivotal conference/division showdown with the Blues.
Coach Jared Bednar said after the morning skate that he’d already addressed this with the team.
“They’ve got some dangerous guys on their team, so you can’t sleep on these guys ever, that’s for sure,… he said. “You have to be ready to go to work because it’s a hard working, hard skating group with some pretty good team speed. They’re committed to their defensive structure, so you have to find ways to break them down and make it a hard night for them.…
Said defenseman Ian Cole: “Yes, the Devils are struggling and they don’t have the record they probably want, but there are still a lot of really dangerous players on that team. I think everyone here is aware of that, and coach Bednar made that very clear. They’re going to come out hard, they’re a proud team. There’s no time to overlook teams.
“You can’t take games off, you need to have the mindset that you’re going to impose your will every single game. I think we’ve done a good job of that regardless of who we’ve played.…
Pavel Francouz will make his third start in a row as Philipp Grubauer recovers from his lower-body injury. But Grubauer is feeling well enough to be the backup, so Adam Werner has been reassigned to the Colorado Eagles.
Francouz is 6-0-1 with a 2.17 goals-against average and .932 save percentage in his past nine appearances.
Rookie defenseman Cale Makar (upper-body injury) did some off-ice work in the gym rather than skate in the morning. Saturday is a mandatory off day, so Bednar said Makar would skate Sunday.
Defenseman Erik Johnson (lower-body injury) skated while wearing a non-contact jersey and could practice Sunday, though he isn’t ready for contact. It would be his first practice since he was injured Nov. 23 against Toronto on the Alexander Kerfoot hit.
Kerfoot served a two-game suspension, Johnson is about to miss his ninth game.
The projected lineup:
FORWARDS Andre Burakovsky -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Joonas Donskoi Gabriel Landeskog -- Nazem Kadri -- Mikko Rantanen Valeri Nichushkin -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Matt Calvert Matt Nieto -- Tyson Jost -- J.T. Compher
DEFENSE Nikita Zadorov -- Samuel Girard Ryan Graves -- Ian Cole Calle Rosen -- Mark Barberio
GOALIES Pavel Francouz Philipp Grubauer