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Look to sweep weekend series

March 24, 2019, 4:32 PM ET [0 Comments]
Rick Sadowski
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Fresh off a 4-2 win against Chicago at the Pepsi Center on Saturday, the Avalanche will try to complete a sweep of the home-and-home series Sunday at the United Center.

GAME NOTES

The Avalanche moved into the second wild card playoff spot with the win. They have 80 points and 33 regulation/overtime wins (the first tiebreaker) with seven games to play.

Arizona, which was playing the New York Islanders on Sunday afternoon, had 79 points and 32 ROWs. Idle Minnesota has 79 points and 34 ROWs while Chicago and Edmonton each had 74 points and 30 ROWs.

Take care of business in the remaining seven games and Colorado won’t need to rely on help from other teams to cement a place in the playoffs.

Here’s my NHL.com GAME STORY from Saturday.

The Avalanche didn’t have a morning skate Sunday and coach Jared Bednar didn’t say Saturday if he’d stick with goalie Philipp Grubauer or start Semyon Varlamov.

Grubauer had 29 saves Saturday in his fourth consecutive start and has gone 6-2-0 in his past nine games (eight starts) with three shutouts, a 1.00 goals-against average and a .968 save percentage.

Varlamov last played March 15 when he allowed four goals on 36 shots in a 5-3 home loss to Anaheim that put the Avalanche’s playoff hopes in serious jeopardy.

They’ve since won four in a row with Grubauer in net (outscoring opponents 13-4), but he might need a rest and Varlamov usually plays well against the Blackhawks. He has a 14-6-3 career record against them with three shutouts, a 2.27 goals-against average and .935 save percentage.

The Avalanche will play without their second- and third-leading scorers again. Mikko Rantanen (upper-body injury) missed his first game of the season Saturday and Gabriel Landeskog (upper-body injury) missed his seventh.

Colorado is 5-2-0 without Landeskog, who was expected to miss 4-6 weeks after getting hurt March 7 in Dallas, but he’s ahead of schedule and has started to skate and shoot pucks.

“I think there’s a chance he could come back early,” Bednar said.

As for Rantanen, who was injured Thursday in Dallas:

“I don’t expect him to play (Sunday),” Bednar said. “He’s day to day or a couple days. We’re just going to keep re-evaluating him every day and see when he’s ready to go. I don’t know exactly what timeline that will be.”

Bednar needs one win for 100 in his NHL coaching career.

Projected lineup:

Alexander Kerfoot -- Nathan MacKinnon -- J.T. Compher
Colin Wilson -- Carl Soderberg – Sven Andrighetto
Derick Brassard -- Tyson Jost -- Matt Calvert
Gabriel Bourque – Andrew Agozzino

Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Tyson Barrie
Nikita Zadorov -- Patrik Nemeth
Ryan Graves

Semyon Varlamov
Philipp Grubauer



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