Avalanche vs. Kraken: Game 6 Lines and Notes

A lot of news off the ice has seemingly overshadowed the massive game taking place tonight between the Colorado Avalanche and the Seattle Kraken.

If the Avalanche don’t win, their season is over. And over earlier than anyone probably expected. Through five games in the series, the Avalanche have gotten zero goals from anyone in their bottom six. If anything, it will be up to the stars on the team to carry the load for them tonight as they look to avoid elimination.

One of those stars is Cale Makar, who returns after a one-game suspension for his hit on Jared McCann. It doesn’t sound like McCann will be returning, and based off what happened in Game Four, Makar will hear it from the Kraken fans every time he touches the puck. I won’t be in Seattle for Game Six like I was for the prior two games, but I can only assume the boo’s from the crowd will be just as loud on TV as they were in person.

Josh Manson will not play tonight after toughing it out for five games. He’s clearly been battling whatever forced him to miss most of the second half of the season. Don’t expect any other line changes to start, but expect MacKinnon and Rantanen to move around and play a ton.

The Kraken may be a second year team, but they have veterans on their squad that have been through elimination games in the past. They’ll lean on guys like Gourde, Tanev, and Dunn in moments like this.

Game Six starts tonight at 8 PM MST and you can watch it on TNT or Altitude TV.

Expected Colorado Avalanche Lines

Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Evan Rodrigues

Matt Nieto – J.T. Compher – Mikko Rantanen

Ben Meyers – Lars Eller – Denis Malgin

Andrew Cogliano – Alex Newhook – Logan O’Connor

Defense

Bowen Byram – Cale Makar

Samuel Girard – Devon Toews

Jack Johnson – Erik Johnson

Goalies

Alexandar Georgiev

Pavel Francouz

Expected Seattle Kraken Lines, per DailyFaceoff.com

Kartye – Beniers – Eberle

Schwartz – Wennberg – Geekie

Tolvanen – Gourde – Bjorkstrand

Tanev – Donato – Sprong

Defense:

Dunn – Larsson

Oleksiak – Borgen

Soucy – Schultz

Goalies:

Grubauer

Jones