{"id":301467,"date":"2025-11-14T03:23:42","date_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/301467\/"},"modified":"2025-11-14T03:23:42","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T03:23:42","slug":"open-thread-colorado-avalanche-vs-buffalo-sabres-700-p-m","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/301467\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread: Colorado Avalanche vs. Buffalo Sabres (7:00 p.m.)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tonight, the Colorado Avalanche welcome the Buffalo Sabres and fans to Fourth Wing Night<\/a> at Ball Arena. The Avalanche come into this showdown as the NHL\u2019s best squad and hope to take care of business with a struggling Sabres group. Can the Avalanche continue on this torrid pace of securing a point in every home game so far? Or will the Sabres go full-on plot-twist and upset Colorado?<\/p>\n

This is the kind of game that the Avalanche should cruise through. I\u2019m not saying they can win effortlessly, but it shouldn\u2019t take long for the Avalanche to get a firm hold on this one (on the scoreboard) early, with Buffalo currently touting the league\u2019s FOURTH-worst goal differential (-11). This is especially true if the Avalanche continue to play the way they did while beating the Pacific-leading Ducks for their FOURTH straight victory.<\/p>\n

Nathan MacKinnon has scored three or more points in a single game five times already this year, and I\u2019m keying on him doing that yet again tonight. MacKinnon is starting an early and effective Hart Trophy campaign alongside a Norris Bid from his good buddy Cale Makar.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, it does appear that Val Nichushkin will miss some time after sustaining an injury during Colorado\u2019s impressive victory over the Ducks. Bednar mentioned today that Val will miss some time but that he\u2019s not yet sure just how much.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good thing the Avalanche have received plenty of depth contributions as of late, and are benefiting from the budding career of Gavin Brindley. I\u2019d expect either Gabe Landeskog or Victor Olofsson to slot into the top six in the absence of Nichushkin.<\/p>\n

This is the perfect night for MacKenzie Blackwood to get back between the pipes and a great night to offer a performance that spurs on his resurgence. He is the confirmed starter tonight for the Avalanche.<\/p>\n

Artturi Lehkonen \u2014 Nathan MacKinnon \u2014 Martin Necas
Ross Colton \u2014 Brock Nelson \u2014 Victor Olofsson (Valeri Nichushkin)
Gabe Landeskog \u2014 Jack Drury \u2014 Gavin Brindley
Parker Kelly \u2014 Zakhar Bardakov \u2014 Tristen Nielsen<\/p>\n

Devon Toews \u2014 Cale Makar
Josh Manson \u2014 Brent Burns
Jack Ahcan \u2014 Sam Malinski<\/p>\n

MacKenzie Blackwood
Scott Wedgewood<\/p>\n

Despite their efforts, I\u2019m afraid this Sabres team presents like one that will miss the playoffs for a 15th consecutive season. Their chances have been significantly impacted by a litany of injuries and other factors, resulting in a roster that is heavily depleted.<\/p>\n

The lack of depth and name recognition at the center position is glaring, which leads me to my prediction for Nathan MacKinnon. When you consider that the Sabres played just last night against the Utah Mammoth and had you read my article about the advantages at altitude<\/a>, you should view this as a scheduled loss for Buffalo.<\/p>\n

Alex Lyon
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen<\/p>\n

Ride or die, Avalanche fans!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tonight, the Colorado Avalanche welcome the Buffalo Sabres and fans to Fourth Wing Night at Ball Arena. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":301468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100],"tags":[1107,229,5133,5,4,1346,1108],"class_list":{"0":"post-301467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-sabres","8":"tag-buffalo","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-buffalosabres","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-open-threads","14":"tag-sabres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115545912508501199","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301467","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=301467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}