Goalie Calvin Pickard gets his first Avalanche start of the season Monday night when Colorado meets the Sharks in San Jose with Jarome Iginla needing one goal to join the 600 club.
Like the Avalanche, San Jose has struggled at home. The SAP Center, aka the Shark Tank, had always been a difficult venue for visiting teams, yet the Sharks are 4-9-0 there this season.
Here are the official notes for the game.
Maybe Pickard will get more offensive support than Semyon Varlamov did Sunday in the Avalanche's 2-1 overtime loss to Arizona, which moved into second place in the Pacific Division when Mikkel Boedker scored on a breakaway with 42.1 seconds left.
Pickard had two previous relief appearances with the Avalanche in November and neither went particularly well. He allowed four goals on 25 shots for a 5.11 goals-against average and .840 save percentage, and he's eager to get his first NHL start of the year. "I want to work hard in practices and when I get my chance just to give my team a chance to win every night," he said over the weekend after being recalled from San Antonio of the AHL. "Day by day, just taking care of myself and being ready when I'm called upon."
Pickard had a 9-8-4 record for the Rampage with a shutout, a 2.75 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. He spent most of last season with Lake Erie but went 6-7-3 with the Avalanche with a 2.35 average and .932 save percentage.
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Coach Patrick Roy's decision to change two line combinations in an attempt to produce more goals didn't work against the Coyotes, even though the Avalanche had 39 shots on goalie Anders Lindback.
"I would like to see us scoring goals and find ways to put the puck behind the goal line," Roy said. "That's what we're going to have to do. I understand our top guys are not producing like we like them to. We're going to need them to do that in order for us to win some hockey games. At the same time, we had our chances and eventually I believe it will go in. We have to find a way to score that big goal."
Here is what the six forwards now playing on the top two lines have been doing:
Iginla, whose 599th career goal gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead on a power play late in the first period, has two goals and an assist in a three-game scoring streak after going nine games without a point. John Mitchell had the second assist, giving him a goal and two assists in a three-game streak. But Nathan MacKinnon, who had the first assist and finished with six shots, has gone 14 games without a goal; he has seven assists and 31 shots on goal during the slump.
Alex Tanguay has four assists and no goals in 11 games since returning from a knee injury. He had no points in four games before getting hurt.
Matt Duchene was scoring goals at a breakneck pace for several weeks and was due to cool off, and he's done just that. He has no points in the past four games, with two goals and two assists in 10 games.
Gabriel Landeskog has one goal and four assists in six games since returning from a back injury. He had no goals and one assist in five games before getting hurt.
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Iginla had a season-best six shots on goal Sunday while on a line with MacKinnon and Tanguay with several chances to become the 19th player in NHL history to reach 600 career goals.
"Now that I get that close I think about it a little bit, but after that you're just trying to contribute," he said. "Every one you get is exciting. One away ... I thought I had some decent chances that could have been that one. It'll feel good to get it and hopefully get it over with and not be thinking about it and just play.
"It's disappointing," he said of the loss. "We did a lot of good things. I thought we played well (enough) to get the win. Even after they tied it 1-1 I thought we had a lot of scoring chances. You'd like to get a few of those back and in overtime (Francois Beauchemin) hits the crossbar. I thought the guys rebounded really well after they tied it. I thought we pushed back and controlled the play after that."
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Roy wasn't happy about how the Avalanche played in the 3-on-3 overtime. Tyson Barrie, Duchene and Mitchell were on the ice when Boedker scored on his breakaway.
"We played it like an all-star game," he said. "We have to be aware going on the rush, the length of our shifts was way too long and we had no energy coming back. It was not smart from our guys the way we played that overtime.
"No excuse. We should have kept the shifts a little shorter. We had a rush chance and we took a shot from a bad angle. Not only that, the three guys went to the net and the puck came back. That's not the type of game we want to play. We want one guy to be aware and stay back and be smart about it."