Avalanche vs. Flames, Game 43: Lines, Notes & How to Watch

The Colorado Avalanche found a bit of that old swagger back at home. Now, can they take it with them on the road?

At home, the offense seemed to wake up. The Avalanche have struggled to score goals all season long, but in the back to back victories, scored a combined 13 goals.

The Avalanche also got a big piece of their team back in the lineup on Monday.

Valeri Nichushkin, who has only suited up for 16 games this season, returned to the lineup and his presence was immediately felt. He picked up an assist on the a powerplay goal, and provided a screen in front of the net on the same tally.

Unfortunately, the news was not as good on Wednesday. Jared Bednar announced Cale Makar will miss the game with an injury. He’s listed as day to day.

The Avalanche will go back to Alexandar Georgiev in net.

This game has a lot of importance in terms of the standings.

The Calgary Flames sit four points ahead of the Avalanche in the standings, but currently have played three more games. The Avalanche need to take care of their games in hand to catch up in the hunt for a playoff spot.

The Flames are coming off a 2-1 loss to Nashville in which their play was described as “pathetic“.

This is the second of three meetings between the teams this season.

Expected Colorado Avalanche Lines

Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Evan Rodrigues

Valeri Nichushkin – J.T. Compher – Mikko Rantanen

Andrew Cogliano – Alex Newhook – Logan O’Connor

Anton Blidh – Ben Meyers

Defense

Devon Toews – Sam Girard

Andreas Englund – Erik Johnson

Kurtis MacDermid – Brad Hunt

Jacob MacDonald

Goalies

Alexandar Georgiev

Pavel Francouz

Expected Calgary Flames lines, per CalgaryHockeyNow.com

Forwards

Dillon Dube – Elias Lindholm – Tyler Toffoli

Milan Lucic – Nazem Kadri – Jonathan Huberdeau

Andrew Mangiapane – Mikael Backlund – Blake Coleman

Trevor Lewis – Adam Ruzicka – Walker Duehr

Defense

Noah Hanifin – Rasmus Andersson

MacKenzie Weegar – Chris Tanev

Nikita Zadorov – Michael Stone

Goalies

Jacob Markstrom

Special Teams

Colorado Avalanche Power Play: 24%, 11th in NHL

Colorado Avalanche Penalty Kill: 75.9%, 19th in NHL

Calgary Flames Power Play: 19.4%, 24th in NHL

Calgary Flames Penalty Kill: 82.4%, 7th in NHL

How to Watch

TV: ESPN+, Altitude TV, Sportsnet 1

Radio: 92.5 FM Altitude Sports Radio

Game Time: 7:30 PM MST