Morning Skate Diary
Avalanche Lines and D Pairs for Minnesota Wild
Avs need this one tonight, I think. The Avs could actually fall out of the top four in the Honda West Division if they lose in regulation to the Wild tonight at Ball Arena. Mind you, they still have four games in hand on the St. Louis Blues and two on the L.A. Kings, but…you don’t want to start having to check how many points the fourth and fifth-place teams have, regardless. With a semi-must-win in mind, here are the Avalanche lines, D pairs and goalie for tonight. Yes, there are some changes from the previous game:
Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen
Calvert-Kadri-Donskoi
Burakovsky-Compher-Nichushkin
Jost-Bellemare-O’Connor
D
Toews-Makar
Graves-Girard
Byram-Timmins
Grubauer in goal.
Where’s Brandon Saad, you ask? His wife is expecting a baby today so he’ll get the night off. Nice to see Matt Calvert get the promotion to the second line in his stead. Also, nice to see Logan O’Connor back in the lineup. Burakovsky obviously gets dropped down a couple notches on the Avalanche lines. His play has been a bit down of late. He’s gone six straight games without a point.
After tonight, Avs will play four games in six nights, all on the road. The Avs sent Hunter Miska to the Eagles, but I believe that’s mostly so he could play tonight in Loveland. The Eagles play Tuscon at the Bud Center, the first game there since March 11 of last year. Jayson Megna was also sent to the Eagles. I would guess that Miska will be back on the Avs roster when they hit the road, but we’ll see. Peyton Jones is on the taxi squad for the Avs right now.
*Avs are -176 favorites to win on the moneyline (that means outright win) at SuperBook Colorado. SuperBook has also boosted the odds of Nathan MacKinnon scoring a goal from +124 to +200 tonight. That means if you bet $20 on MacKinnon to score a goal, you’d win $60 (your $20 back, plus $40 more). Link to SuperBook Colorado here. (Yes, they’re a sponsor of this site, so patronize them! They also match your first bet up to $300!!!).