Pavel Francouz will make his first NHL start Saturday when the Avalanche play Arizona at the Pepsi Center to close out a four-game homestand.
“He’s got a great demeanor about him, comes to the rink every day and works extremely hard,” coach
Jared Bednar said after the morning skate. “He’s impressed all our guys on the ice -- players, coaching staff, management. The last exhibition game against Vegas he was outstanding. That’s a tough building to go in to play, we had a younger lineup and they had a bit of a mix with some of their older, veteran guys and he did a great job.”
GAME NOTES.
Like most goalies, Francouz said he preferred to head home and get in a pregame nap and would talk after the game.
He made two relief appearances last season, going 0-2-0 with a 1.97 goals-against average and .943 save percentage. Francouz went 27-17-3 with a 2.68 GAA and .918 save percentage in 49 games with Colorado of the American Hockey League last season.
J.T. Compher (lower-body injury) will miss his second game, but
Gabriel Landeskog and
Joonas Donskoi will play after missing practice Friday to nurse minor injuries.
The Avalanche believe they can play a lot better than they have despite winning the first three games.
"We're 3-0 without having played our best hockey,” Landeskog said. “There's still a lot of things we can clean up. We know we can do better, that’s what we have to do tonight. It’s a real positive and a good sign of a team to be able to win hockey games when you’re not playing your best.
"We’re happy with the results, but for us it’s more to it than that. We want to get back to where we finished off last season.”
Coyotes forward
Carl Soderberg will play his first game against Colorado since being traded June 25 for defenseman
Kevin Connauton and a third-round pick in the 2020 NHL draft. He has two assists in three games.
Arizona’s
Phil Kessel will play his 1,000th NHL game and 778th consecutive game. Antti Ranta will start in goal.
The Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Joonas Donskoi -- Nazem Kadri -- Andre Burakovsky
Matt Nieto -- Tyson Jost -- Colin Wilson
Matt Calvert -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Valeri Nichushkin
DEFENSE
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Nikita Zadorov -- Cale Makar
Ryan Graves -- Mark Barberio
GOALIES
Pavel Francouz
Philipp Grubauer
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