Maybe a few lineup changes can help the Avalanche get back on track Saturday in Montreal.
Defenseman
Mark Barberio and forward
Colin Wilson were activated from injured reserve after recovering from upper-body injuries and will play against the Canadiens at the Bell Centre.
The
GAME NOTES.
Barberio, who missed 19 games, will replace
Patrik Nemeth, who is ill.
BSNDenver.com reported that Wilson, who missed eight games, will be on the second line with
Alexander Kerfoot and
Tyson Jost. J.T. Compher will move to the third line and
Matt Nieto to the fourth line.
Of course, the changes won’t mean much if expected starter
Semyon Varlamov doesn’t improve on his Wednesday performance when he allowed four goals on 15 shots in the Avalanche’s 5-3 loss in Calgary.
The penalty killing also needs to get a lot better. The Avalanche have allowed 19 power-play goals in the past 17 games in a 4-10-3 run.
The Avalanche are 1-6-2 in the past nine games and 0-5-1 in the past six road games.
Let’s see if they play with more fire in the wake of the
Nathan MacKinnon/Jared Bednar incident that took place in the waning seconds of Wednesday’s game.
While it wasn’t that big of a deal, getting the frustration of the team’s downward spiral of the past six weeks out in the open can be a positive thing.
“My job as a coach is just to make sure we’re driving that emotion and that passion and that energy into the right places and focusing it in the right place and we’re doing it in a positive way and that it will lead to winning,” Bednar said.
Defenseman
Nikita Zadorov joined the team and took part in the morning skate. He’ll miss his 10th game with a lower-body injury but is close to returning.
The projected lineup:
Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Tyson Jost -- Alexander Kerfoot – Colin Wilson
Matt Calvert -- Carl Soderberg – J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto – Sheldon Dries -- Sven Andrighetto
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Tyson Barrie
Ryan Graves – Mark Barberio
Semyon Varlamov
Philipp Grubauer