The Colorado Avalanche face off against a familiar face behind the Anaheim Ducks bench with a slight shakeup in the lineup.
It's tough to determine exactly who will play for the Colorado Avalanche against the Anaheim Ducks after morning skate.
The team recalled defensemen Caleb Jones and Sam Malinski, who both played in Monday's win against Seattle and participated in morning skate. Samuel Girard was in attendance while Josh Manson is out day-to-day with an upper body injury, per head coach Jared Bednar.
A team's hope is to not to suffer serious or numerous injuries in a season but the Avalanche unfortunately know it all too well. Last season they battled through rotating injuries and players regularly coming and going. But it's something the team has to adapt and adjust to not knowing when injured players will return.
"You never know there's injuries and stuff and guys get dropped last minute," Mikko Rantanen said about the last minute call ups. "Really good game they played — Malinski's first game, and Jones has some NHL games, so has some experience. Pretty solid games, and it's good to see. You're never going to have full healthy lineup for 82 games, so the guys can step up and execute the game plan well, so it's fun to see."
Andrew Cogliano and Joel Kiviranta were at morning skate but Bednar didn't confirm who was going to play.
"Brought exactly what we thought he would," Bednar said about Kiviranta, who played against Seattle on Monday. "Veteran, experienced NHL guy that bought into his role, knows exactly what he has to do. I think he fits the mold of our fourth line really well and he played it to a T."
This will be the Avalanche's first matchup against former Colorado Eagles head coach Greg Cronin since he took the helm in Anaheim.
"They're off to a great start. You look at their underlying numbers, all the things he implemented with the Eagles, and then some are showing up with Anaheim ..." Bednar said. "Everything, kind of staples of your game you're trying to clean up and make sure they're climbing in the rankings from 32nd to first — they've improved on all of it and it's showing in their play ... they're a dangerous team."
The Ducks are a young, fast team and the Avs have a challenge ahead of them. Keys to winning this matchup are goaltending, consistency and energy. Production from all four lines is imperative but Jonathan Drouin said he is ready to go no matter where he plays.
"I'm not thinking anymore about the past couple games. That's stuff I don't really control, you're in and out of the lineup that's coaches decision — you just put your head down and go to work," Drouin said. "I've been happy the way I've been playing lately. I feel more comfortable with the puck, making more plays, more like myself a little bit."
Projected lines
Jonathan Drouin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Tomas Tatar — Ryan Johansen — Valeri Nichushkin
Miles Wood — Ross Colton — Logan O’Connor
Kurtis MacDermid — Frederik Olofsson — Joel Kiviranta
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Caleb Jones — Bowen Byram
Jack Johnson — Sam Malinski
Alexandar Georgiev
Ivan Prosvetov