The Avalanche reach the halfway point of the season Thursday, taking on the defending Stanley Cup champ St. Louis Blues at the Pepsi Center.

GAME NOTES

Philipp Grubauer starts, and the Avalanche will show off their new lines (see below) as they try to end a three-game losing streak (0-2-1). They’ve gone 1-4-1 in the past six games and 2-5-1 in eight after going 8-0-1 in the previous nine.

The Avalanche are second in the Central Division with a 23-13-4 record and 50 points, eight points behind the Blues, but their hold on the position has slipped. Dallas also has 50 points, but has played one more game. Colorado does have a 23-21 lead over the Stars in regulation and overtime wins.

As for the line changes:

“I’m concerned, you’re hoping it works,” Jared Bednar said after an optional morning skate. “The reason you’re mixing it up in the first place is because it hasn’t been working at the level we would like it to. We haven’t done what we’ve wanted to do in the last handful of games, so we’re going to give it a different look and see how things work out.”

The Gabriel Landeskog-Nathan MacKinnon-Joonas Donskoi line is the only one that remains intact.

“The MacKinnon line was outstanding last game,” Bednar said, referring to the Avalanche’s 7-4 loss to Winnipeg on New Year’s Eve. “They generated a lot of chances and they were pretty good on the defensive side of things.

“They were on pucks, (getting) traffic to the net, getting quality scoring chances, plus secondary chances through checking the puck back and just being in the right areas, getting to the interior of the ice.”

The Blues are coming off a 3-1 loss to the Arizona Coyotes that ended their winning streak at eight games. Goalie Jordan Binnington has gone 6-0-0 in his past six starts with a 2.14 goals-against average and .921 save percentage.

The Blues are 2-0-0 against Colorado this season, have won the past six meetings and are 15-2-3 since Jan. 6, 2016.

The Avalanche lineup:

FORWARDS
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Joonas Donskoi
Matt Calvert -- Nazem Kadri -- Valeri Nichushkin
Matt Nieto -- J.T. Compher -- Mikko Rantanen
Tyson Jost -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Andre Burakovsky

DEFENSE
Ryan Graves -- Cale Makar
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Nikita Zadorov

GOALIES
Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz



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