The Avalanche will have yet another set of line combinations Thursday night when they play Tampa Bay in the second game of their three-game road trip. I guess when you're 2-5-1 you pretty much try anything. We'll see if moving the same pieces into different places will change anything.
Here are the game notes.
The lines:
Alex Tanguay -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Jarome Iginla Gabriel Landeskog -- Matt Duchene -- Jack Skille Dennis Everberg -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau Cody McLeod -- John Mitchell -- Mikhail Grigorenko
The defense pairings remain the same:
Francois Beauchemin -- Erik Johnson Nick Holden -- Tyson Barrie Nikita Zadorov -- Nate Guenin
Semyon Varlamov will make his first road start of the season. He has a 1-3-1 record with a 3.93 goals-against average and .869 save percentage. He's played well against the Lightning, posting a 7-2-2 career record against them with two shutouts, a 2.28 average and .923 save perentage.
The Avalanche are 0-3-1 in the past four games and have gone 3-for-27 on power plays in the past six games.
Coach Patrick Roy even had a mandatory morning skate Thursday after cancelling practice Wednesday. It was the first full morning skate this season. They aren't likely to have one Friday in Carolina regardless of what happens against the Lightning because of the back-to-back situation.
GM Joe Sakic told ESPN's Pierre LeBrun he isn't panicking over the Avalanche's poor start. Here's the story.
Tampa Bay (5-3-2) was shut out in its past two games, both on the road, and has gone 2-3-2 since starting the season with three consecutive wins.