Maybe the Avalanche can provide some offense for Philipp Grubauer on Tuesday when the Avalanche take on the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden in the final game of the three-game road trip.
That wasn’t the case for Pavel Francouz on Monday. He stopped 32 of 33 shots against the New York Islanders, but former Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov stopped all 32 he faced in their 1-0 win.
Grubauer has played well against the Rangers in his career, posting a 4-2-1 record with a shutout, 1.64 goals-against average and .948 save percentage.
Nathan MacKinnon will play his 500th NHL game.
The Avalanche are 3-3-1 when playing the second game of a back-to-back set.
Igor Shesterkin will be in goal for the Rangers, making his NHL debut after being recalled from Hartford of the AHL. He went 15-4-3 with the Wolf Pack with three shutouts, a 1.93 goals-against average and .932 save percentage.
Shesterkin went 79-9-4, 1.49, .940 his past three seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League.
Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar is a Last Men In candidate to join MacKinnon on the Central Division team for the 2020 NHL All-Star Game. He’s second among NHL rookies in scoring with 32 points (nine goals, 23 assists) in 35 games.
Voting ends Friday at 9:59 p.m. MT.
Fans can vote at NHL.com/Vote or on a mobile interactive ballot on the NHL app.
The probable lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Joonas Donskoi Valeri Nichushkin -- Nazem Kadri – Matt Calvert Matt Nieto -- J.T. Compher -- Mikko Rantanen Tyson Jost -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Andre Burakovsky
DEFENSE Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson Nikita Zadorov -- Ian Cole
GOALIES Philipp Grubauer Pavel Francouz