The Avalanche kick off a difficult back-to-back situation tonight in St. Louis, meeting the Blues before heading home to take on Anaheim on Sunday at the Pepsi Center, where the Ducks practiced today after playing Friday in Dallas.
Here are the game notes for tonight.
The Avalanche (3-4-4) have picked up at least one point in five consecutive games (2-0-3) and are coming off a 5-0 win Thursday against the New York Islanders when Nathan MacKinnon scored his first two goals of the season and goalie Semyon Varlamov made 40 saves.
Colorado has gone 0-2-2 in the past four road games, but special teams have been effective. The Avalanche have gone 5-for-18 on power plays in the past five games overall and they've killed 17 consecutive penalties in a four-game stretch.
The Avalanche really need to make life a little easier for Varlamov, who has faced 91 shots the past two games -- he stopped 89 -- and 148 shots in the past four. He turned aside 141 of those for a .953 save percentage in a personal 2-0-2 streak.
Varlamov has a 2-2-3 record for the season with a 2.51 goals-against average and .934 save percentage. He's 5-4-1 in his career against the Blues with two shutouts, a 2.93 average and .942 save percentage.
Paul Stastny, who left the Avalanche as a free agent to sign a four-year, $28 million contract with the Blues, will miss his sixth consecutive game because of a shoulder injury and forward T.J. Oshie will sit out his second game in a row with a concussion.
Some Avalanche players, including Matt Duchene and Erik Johnson, had dinner Friday at Stastny's house.
"A few of us went and saw him and obviously any team's going to miss a guy like that when you lose him," Duchene told reporters. "It seems like he's liking St. Louis. It would have been fun to play against him, but hopefully he gets back in the lineup soon."
Blues center David Backes took part in the morning skate and is expected to play after missing one game because of a concussion. Center Joakim Lindstrom, one of several Blues who came down with a bacterial infection, also will be in the lineup.
"Don't go to the bank with the rest of the lineup, but Backes will play today," Blues coach Ken Hitchcock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The rest we'll take through the rest of the day and make sure we've got 20 (players)."
The Blues have won three games in a row and will take a 5-3-1 record into the game.
Brian Elliott, who had a cup of coffee with the Avalanche a few years ago, will start in goal, his 100th game with the Blues. He's gone 3-2-1 with one shutout, a 1.98 goals-against average and .917 save percentage. He has a 3-2-1 record against the Avalanche with one shutout, a 2.81 average and .864 save percentage.
Here's the Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Landeskog - Duchene - O'Reilly McGinn - MacKinnon - Iginla Tanguay - Mitchell - Everberg McLeod - Cliche - Talbot
DEFENSEMEN Hejda - Johnson Holden - Stuart Guenin - Barrie
GOALIES Varlamov Berra
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I highly recommend you check out Save by Roy an in-depth look at the Avalanche's surprising 2013-14 season. It can be purchased on amazon.com and will be available wherever books are sold Nov. 5. It's written by Denver Post sports reporters Adrian Dater and Terry Frei.