Avalanche To Face Filip Gustavsson Tonight In Minnesota

Apologies for being out of the loop last few days. Some family stuff back east. Back on the beat soon. For now, I’m piggybacking off the reports of others for another day or so, and will keep it brief. The defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche are back in action tonight in Minnesota, and will not be facing veteran goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Fleury, who has an 0-1 record, .776 save percentage and. … wait for it. … 8.37 goals-against average through two games, will get a seat tonight in favor of backup Filip Gustavsson, according to longtime Wild reporter Mike Russo. Fleury, who re-signed with Minnesota over the summer as a free agent, has been hearing boos already from the Wild faithful.

Gustavsson checks in with a 4.50 GAA and .850 SP. According to Denver Gazette reporter Kyle Frederickson, Jared Bednar won’t reveal his starting goalie for tonight. I would assume it’ll be Alexandar Georgiev, but I guess we’ll have to wait to find out.

The Avalanche is a -115 favorite to win, at SuperBook Colorado. The Wild may be missing veteran Mats Zuccarello from the lineup tonight too, per Russo.

It’ll be interesting to see how the Avalanche come out tonight, after that horrible start the other night in Calgary. I’m sure Bednar had a few things to say about that, and the overall defensive play in the interim.

It’ll also be interesting to see how the second line performs tonight for the Avalanche. Neither Alex Newhook nor linemate Evan Rodrigues has a point through the two games so far.