The Colorado Avalanche have been busy this morning announcing the release and sale of the much-anticipated Quebec Nordiques alternate jersey. Still, they will be even busier tonight at the newly renovated Delta Center in Utah as they play the Mammoth for the second time in two weeks. The Avalanche got away with a 2-1 victory at home last time out despite being outplayed in much of the game. Will Utah get its revenge on their home sheet? Or do the Avalanche have a better showing in them this time around?<\/p>\n
Colorado is six games into a condensed October schedule and is off to a strong start. The Olympics will throw a hair-loop into this season\u2019s schedule, and we\u2019ve seen that in the teams and players who are hot and the teams and players who are cold.<\/p>\n
Among the hot-streak players sit the Avalanche top-line, who have combined for a whopping 27 points in six contests. That\u2019s 4.5 points a game so far, which is so gawdy that it doesn\u2019t seem sustainable, but it\u2019s possible that this isn\u2019t even as good as the top line can be, as they should get more familiar and even better as the year wears on.<\/p>\n
It sounds like Kiviranta is still a no-go, which means we will get the double-rookie 4th line. Gavin Brindley and Zakhar Bardakov haven\u2019t amassed a ton of minutes, but that shelter should help confidence levels. Brindley even had a goal against Dallas. Let\u2019s see if the two of them can take advantage of limited opportunities and combine for some offensive production.<\/p>\n
MacKenzie Blackwood never played for the Eagles despite being loaned to the team in Loveland for a conditioning stint, but it does feel like he\u2019s not quite ready to take the net back from Scott Wedgewood. The good news is that he shouldn\u2019t feel any rush or consternation about waiting it out, as Wedgewood is playing incredibly well. Wedgie will get the nod this evening.<\/p>\n
Artturi Lehkonen \u2014 Nathan MacKinnon \u2014 Martin Necas
Gabe Landeskog \u2014 Brock Nelson \u2014 Valeri Nichushkin
Ross Colton \u2014 Jack Drury \u2014 Viktor Olofsson
Parker Kelly \u2014 Zakhar Bardakov \u2014 Gavin Brindley<\/p>\n
Devon Toews \u2014 Cale Makar
Josh Manson \u2014 Brent Burns
Ilya Solovyov \u2014 Sam Malinski<\/p>\n
Scott Wedgewood
Trent Miner<\/p>\n
The Mammoth should feel good about their start and how they are playing early into 2025-26, as well, and despite losing in the first matchup, they should feel good about a rematch with Colorado, too. Most of the locker room, including Nathan MacKinnon, thought that the Mammoth had done enough to win, but that the Avalanche took advantage of limited opportunities and stole one. If they can replicate that this evening, they could hand the Avs their first regulation loss of the season.<\/p>\n
A shining light in that first contest was Karel Vejmelk, who is the likely starter again this evening. I\u2019m trying not to think too hard about it, but it does feel like the Avalanche gets goalied more often than other squads, and this poses a threat in that category. Be on the lookout for a more in-depth look at this trend from me in the weeks to come.<\/p>\n
Karel Vejmelka
Vitek Vanecek<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s drop the puck in Utah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Avalanche have been busy this morning announcing the release and sale of the much-anticipated Quebec Nordiques…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4,1346],"class_list":{"0":"post-258982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-open-threads"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115415880289642680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}