The Avalanche face San Jose on Thursday at the Pepsi Center in a rematch of last year’s second-round playoff series, won by the Sharks in seven games.
GAME NOTES
“It’s a great opportunity for us to try and get back on track and build off what we did last game, our last couple games,” coach
Jared Bednar said after an optional morning skate. “To do it at home against a team like San Jose that put us out of the playoffs would be great. Guys are excited. We know them pretty well even though it’s been a while since we played them.”
Joonas Donskoi scored the winning goal in Game 7 for the Sharks and signed with the Avalanche as a free agent July 1. He’ll miss his third game as he goes through concussion protocol, but he skated again Thursday and might be available Saturday against St. Louis.
“I wish he was with us last year instead of doing that,” Bednar said of Donskoi. “We were hoping he was going to be ready to play tonight, but it didn’t work out for us. We’re just kind of waiting for him to get cleared and take some contact in a full practice and then hopefully get him in a game.”
Here it is in all its “glory”, the Avalanche jersey for the Stadium Series game against Los Angeles at Air Force Academy next month:
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Philipp Grubauer will start against the Sharks.
The Avalanche have lost four games in a row (0-2-2), are 3-6-3 in the past 12 games and 1-4-2 in the past seven on home ice.
Sharks center
Joe Thornton will play his 1,615th NHL game and tie Larry Murphy for 10th place on the all-time list. Thornton, 40, has 1,497 points (415 goals, 1,082 assists) in a 22-year career, three shy of becoming the 14th player in league history to reach 1,500 points.
The lineup:
FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Valeri Nichushkin -- Nazem Kadri – Andre Burkovsky
Matt Calvert -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Tyson Jost -- Vladislav Kamenev
DEFENSE
Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Nikita Zadorov
GOALIES
Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz