Preview: Colorado looks to keep their winning ways alive against Nashville

After a great game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Colorado looks to build on that game and string together another win on this homestand.

After coming off a win against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday night, the Colorado Avalanche look to win again tonight as they welcome the Nashville Predators to Denver. This will be the second meeting between these teams, with the Predators winning the first game by a final score of 5-2.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avs were able to build upon an arguably great game in Winnipeg, where everything seemed to go right for this Colorado team outside of being able to score, they certainly found their scoring touch against the Carolina Hurricanes and won that game by a final score of 6-4. They hope to build upon that game tonight and tack on another win against the Nashville Predators.

That game against the Hurricanes saw Colorado get scoring from multiple parts of their lineup, with Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar all scoring, but guys like Sam Malinski also getting in on the action. Tonight, Colorado will need scoring from different parts of their lineup again as they take on a Nashville team that is built to score.

Projected Lineup

Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Mikko Rantanen
Joel Kiviranta – Casey Mittelstadt – Logan O’Connor
Ivan Ivan – Parker Kelly – Nikolai Kovalenko
Nikita Prishchepov – TJ Tynan – Chris Wagner

Devon Toews – Cale Makar
Samuel Girard – Josh Manson
John Ludvig – Sam Malinski

Nashville Predators

Similarly to the last time these two teams met, the Nashville Predators are still struggling mightily, as they currently reside at last place in the division. After the offseason that the Predators had, a lot of people, myself included, thought that they would be doing much, much better than they currently are, as they made some huge swings and signed players like Steven Stamkos.

Nashville is coming off a win against the Utah Hockey Club by a final score of 4-0. Juuse Saros seemed to look like his old self in that game, and they also got scoring from multiple parts of their lineup, similar to Colorado in their last game.

Projected Lineup

Filip Forsberg – Ryan O’Reilly – Steven Stamkos
Jonathan Marchessault – Colton Sissons – Gustav Nyquist
Philip Tomasino – Juuso Parssinen – Luke Evangelista
Cole Smith – Michael McCarron – Zachary L’Heureux

Brady Skjei – Roman Josi
Jeremy Lauzon – Alexandre Carrier
Marc Del Gaizo – Luke Schenn

Goaltenders

Nashville will likely start Saros in net tonight, especially given the fact that he just posted a shutout against Utah two nights ago. As for Colorado, they will likely go back to Alexandar Georgiev here tonight after his last two performances. He had a much stronger performance against Winnipeg than Carolina numbers-wise, but he did what he needed to against Carolina nonetheless. If it is Georgiev here again tonight, you’ll need a strong performance against a Nashville team that is designed to score a lot of goals, even if they haven’t been scoring a lot lately.