Jean-Sebastien Giguere will start in goal for the Avalanche on Tuesday night in Edmonton, his first since March 18 when he allowed five goals on 35 shots in a 6-3 loss at Montreal.
Coach Patrick Roy said last week that he wanted to use Giguere against the Oilers, Semyon Varlamov on Thursday in Vancouver and Reto Berra on Friday in San Jose.
Varlamov was named the NHL's second star of the week after posting a 3-0-1 record with one shutout, a 1.42 goals-against average and .950 save percentage.
Roy hasn't decided on his goalie for Sunday's regular-season finale in Anaheim and will do that based on where the Avalanche stands heading into the playoffs. If the game doesn't have any bearing on postseason seeding, my guess is Giguere would play against the Ducks. Jiggy, who probably will retire after the playoffs, had his greatest success with Anaheim, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2003 and the Stanley Cup in 2007.
The Avalanche is in second place in the Central Division with 107 points, four behind first-place St. Louis and two in front of third-place Chicago. The Avalanche and Blues have four games left, the Blackhawks three.
St. Louis is home to Washington on Tuesday, at Minnesota on Thursday, at Dallas on Friday and home to Detroit on Sunday.
Chicago is home to Montreal on Wednesday, at Washington on Friday and at Nashville on Saturday.
The Oilers have a 28-42-9 record, but they always seem to give the Avalanche fits. Edmonton has won two games in a row, split the first two meetings between the teams and has a high-scoring line with Taylor Hall, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Jordan Eberle. The trio combined for seven goals and 15 assists in the past four games. Hall was named the NHL's first star of the week after collecting two goals and seven assists in four games. Hall, Eberle and David Perron each have 27 goals.
The Avalanche is still without Matt Duchene (knee), Cody McLeod (ankle), PA Parenteau (knee) and Cory Sarich (back), but Parenteau took part in the morning skate Tuesday and is expected to play at least once on the four-game trip.
The Avalanche has gone 6-0-1 in the past seven games and 3-0-1 in the past four road games. With 50 wins, the team is two short of the franchise record set in 2000-01.
Giguere hasn't had much success against the Oilers. He has a 6-12-3 career record against them with one shutout, a 2.99 goals-against average and .885 save percentage. His last win came March 6 at Detroit when he made 35 saves in a 3-2 overtime victory.
Here's the Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog - Paul Stastny - John Mitchell Ryan O'Reilly - Nathan MacKinnon - Jamie McGinn Max Talbot - Marc-Andre Cliche - Patrick Bordeleau Ryan Wilson - Brad Malone - Paul Carey
DEFENSE Jan Hejda -- Erik Johnson Andre Benoit -- Nick Holden Nate Guenin - Tyson Barrie
GOALIES Jean-Sebastien Giguere Semyon Varlamov