Game Preview: Avalanche Head East To Take On Struggling Sabres

Last year, the Avalanche played two of their more exciting games of the season against the Buffalo Sabres.

Both involved multi-goal comebacks and a goaltending change, with one even leading to Jared Bednar swearing during his postgame presser due to his frustration with the officials on one particular play.

Quite honestly, it was some of the most entertaining hockey from the entire regular season around the league, and one of the teams involved has been mired in a playoff slump for more than a decade.

But it’s a new year now, and both teams are looking to get ahead in an early Monday game. The Avs are attempting to bounce back from a shootout loss, albeit they’ll likely not need to change up much of what they did against the Stars.

Colorado controlled the play for most of the night and looked as sharp as ever offensively. The top line was buzzing, and depth forwards like Victor Olofsson and Gavin Brindley looked like they were on their game, too.

If anything, this game could be the perfect opportunity for the Valeri Nichushkin, Gabe Landeskog, and Brock Nelson line to catch fire and break out of their early season offensive struggles.

For Buffalo, which is 0-2 to start the season, falling into a 0-3 hole would be just about the worst possible scenario for them. This is a team that hasn’t qualified for the postseason in 14 years and looks further away from achieving that goal with each passing year.

You can’t make the playoffs in October, but you can certainly fall way out of the picture within the blink of an eye.

This is Colorado’s first game of the season against the Eastern Conference, and the start of a two-game road trip.