The Las Vegas Golden Knights face off against the Colorado Avalanche tonight after a few days off. The Golden Knights will be tasked with shutting down one of the more dominant pairings in MacKinnon and Rantanen. Winger Valeri Nichushkin was very dangerous against the Golden Knights when they played eachother last week. He made a scary backhand pass that led to a one timer goal. With the lines blendered — expect some chaos tonight. I apologize for the later blog, but the goal is to get one out within an hour of the lineup being announced. Peter DeBoer likes to disclose that as late as possible. What can you do?
Carrier-Karlsson-Smith Rondbjerg-Stephenson-Krebs Janmark-Patrick-Kolesar Baertschi-Leschyshyn-Brown
Martinez-Pietrangelo Hague-Whitecloud Miromanov-Coghlan
Thompson
Finding a spot for Krebs The winger has bounced around various lines this offseason. With high expectations heading into this season — Peyton has underwhelmed. Stephenson is looking sharp this preseason and will hopefully drag Krebs’ game onto the scoresheet.
Miromanov! Daniil Miromanov was announced as sent down to the AHL a few days ago. He’s currently posted as in the lineup tonight. Confusing, but good for him. With three goals in the last two games — both on 5-on-5, he deserves a longer look.
Kolesar gets a shot to crack the third line The line of Carrier-Roy-Kolesar looked great, but with Roy leaving the game holding his back last week — the line has been split up. Carrier will play on the Knights’ second unit with Karlsson and Smith. Although that line will be the first unit for this preseason game. Kolesar takes Dadonov’s regular spot on Vegas’ unofficial third line. His size and presence may be what Patrick and Janmark were missing in terms of getting pucks in the net
Taking advantage of a weak blue line When Jack Johnson is headlining the second pairing — you know youre looking at a shallow blue line. Tonight’s lineup has all the tools to score on this blue line. It will be fun to see how the Janmark-Patrick-Kolesar line does in particular. Patrick has been doing all the right things.
Here is the Avalanche’s lineup for tonight:
Ranta-MacKinnon-Rantanen Nichushkin-Kadri-Burakovsky Megna-Bowers-Matteau Sherwood-Maltsev-Sikura
Murray-Barron J. Johnson-Gilbert MacDermid-McKeown
Francouz Johansson
Have a great night,
Trevor Neufeld