Game preview: The struggling Colorado Avalanche welcome the Anaheim Ducks to Denver

The Colorado Avalanche continue looking for their first win of the season as they host the Anaheim Ducks in Denver tonight. This will be the first of three meetings between these two teams this season and will round out Colorado's current home game.

Colorado avalanche

Much of the story remains the same for Colorado heading into this game. They are still looking for their first win of the season. There were a few different little things about each game that you could pick out that they probably liked, but it feels like they haven't managed to put it all together cohesively into one game. If they can do that here tonight against the Ducks, it would be a great start.

On the bright side, it appears as if no more names will be joining Colorado's already extensive injury list after all. Miles Wood was rocked by a goal from Elias Lindholm in the last game against the Boston Bruins. I think it's fair to say that a lot of people at the time, myself included, automatically assumed he would miss some time because things were looking bad at the moment. However, his injury is not believed to be serious and there is even a possibility that he will play tonight, which is a huge relief.

Planned lineup

Ross Colton – Nathan MacKinnon – Mikko Rantanen
Miles Wood – Casey Mittelstadt – Logan O'Connor
Nikolai Kovalenko – Parker Kelly – Calum Ritchie
Ivan Ivan – Matthew Stienburg – Joel Kiviranta

Oliver Kylington – Cale Makar
Samuel Girard-Josh Manson
Calvin De Haan – Sam Malinski

Anaheim Ducks

The Ducks are coming off an overtime thriller in which they defeated the Utah Hockey Club by a final score of 5-4. Leo Carlsson was the hero for Anaheim in this game as he was able to get behind the defense and score the win for the Ducks.

This Ducks team is certainly nothing to sneeze at as they are undoubtedly young and talented. Will Colorado be able to neutralize Anaheim's offensive talent and find more offense of their own?

Projected lines

Robby Fabbri – Mason McTavish – Trevor Zegras
Frank Vatrano – Ryan Strome – Troy Terry
Editor Gauthier – Leo Carlsson – Alex Killorn
Brock McGinn – Isac Lundestrom – Brett Leason

Cam Fowler – Tristan Luneau
Olen Zellweger – Radko Gudas
Pavel Mintyukov – Brian Dumoulin

goalkeeper

Tonight it will likely be Alexandar Georgiev in net as he continues to work on his problem, with Lukas Dostal facing him as well.