Maybe some home cooking will help the Avalanche emerge from a slump that has seen them lose three consecutive games, the past two despite combining for 11 goals.

Not that facing the Western Conference-leading Nashville Predators on Wednesday at the Pepsi Center will be easy.

The GAME NOTES.

Nashville, which defeated the Avalanche in six games in the first round of the playoffs seven months ago, is off to an 11-3-0 start that includes a 6-0-0 record on the road. The Predators have won 10 consecutive regular-season games against Colorado.

Semyon Varlamov will start in goal for the Avalanche, who are in the midst of a weird schedule in which they’ve played four games in 12 days – two back-to-back sets with four off-days in-between each set.

Forwards Sven Andrighetto (lower body), J.T. Compher (head) and Tyson Jost (head) remain sidelined, but Andrighetto and Jost are getting close to returning.

The Avalanche will have to play a lot better defensively and get better goaltending than they did in the past two games, a 6-5 loss in Calgary when they had a 4-1 lead and a 7-6 overtime loss in Vancouver.

“The (defensive) gaps was a big part of it, Calgary especially,” coach Jared Bednar said after the morning skate. “Every time they touched the puck on a breakout they were able to skate it across our blue line. There were lots of instances where they had numbers coming at us; we didn’t do a good enough job as forwards, but there were also a lot of instances in that game where it was even numbers coming out of their zone and we were sitting back too far.

“I thought we were better at it in Vancouver, but they caught us with some speed. You have to be able to skate with those guys and make the right decisions. There’s some things where we need to improve for sure, but Calgary …

"Our detail and compete level wasn’t high enough, so it wasn’t a surprise to me the way that game went. Vancouver, I thought we made a lot of nice adjustments. I just think the shooters were having a really good night for both teams and the goalies weren’t great.”

Probable Avalanche lineup:

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Sheldon Dries -- Alexander Kerfoot -- Colin Wilson
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Matt Calvert
Gabriel Bourque -- Vladislav Kamenev -- Marko Dano

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

Semyon Varlamov
Philipp Grubauer



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