blockbuster trade from the Nashville Predators in Nov. 2017<\/a>. The deal also included a draft pick that eventually became Bowen Byram, and those two helped Cale Makar reshape the Avalanche defense corps and deliver a Stanley Cup championship in 2022.<\/p>\nGirard has played 583 of his 595 career regular-season games with the Avs, and all of his 67 playoff contests. He was a beloved teammate in the dressing room. Kulak has been an excellent fit for Colorado. Malinski\u2019s breakout season is part of why the Avs were willing to move Girard for a more defensive-minded player, but that doesn\u2019t diminish the impact \u201cLa Tornade\u201d had here.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe creates a lot of space in the o-zone. Everybody knows the spin-o-rama he does,\u201d Avs defenseman Josh Manson said. \u201cI think people maybe underestimate his ability to break the puck out. For his size and length of his stick, he still gets body position on a lot of guys, makes little plays to touch pucks and win puck battles, more than maybe I think people realize.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will be different (Monday night). He was a core part of this group for a long, long time. \u2026 Hopefully he gets healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Girard played seven games for the Penguins after the trade. He blocked four shots in his first contest and has averaged 18:25 of ice time per game. He\u2019s also missed the past three games with an injury.<\/p>\n
He was on the ice for Pittsburgh\u2019s morning skate, but isn\u2019t ready to return against his former club.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a great addition for us,\u201d Penguins defenseman Kris Letang said. \u201cWe all know what he\u2019s capable to do on the ice, but as a person, he\u2019s a great guy.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, it\u2019s a quick turnaround. I try to help him out, as a fellow Frenchman, with different things in Pittsburgh to make him feel at home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another ex-Avs defenseman will be in the lineup for the surprising Penguins, who were not expected to be a playoff contender this season but come to Denver in second place in the Metropolitan Division. Ilya Solovyov\u2019s time with the Avs was significantly shorter than Girard\u2019s.<\/p>\n
Solovyov came to the Avs at the end of training camp, when the club claimed him Oct. 3 off waivers from the Calgary Flames. He played 16 games for Colorado, spending most of his time here as the No. 7 defenseman.<\/p>\n
He scored his first NHL goal with the Avs on Jan. 10, but then was traded to the Penguins just 10 days later for Valtteri Puustinen and a seventh-round pick.<\/p>\n
Solovyov has four points in nine games for the Penguins. He\u2019s playing nearly two minutes per night more with Pittsburgh. The two ex-Avs had a really strong game when paired together against the Boston Bruins earlier this month, but that was the last game Girard played.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to have (Girard) here,\u201d Solovyov said. \u201cHe\u2019s a good player, a good guy. We already played one game together, before he got injured. We played like maybe seven games together (with Colorado), and we had fun as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably harder for him, because he knew those guys for like (eight) years, but I think he\u2019s doing well. He has managed it pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a familiar face leaning over the boards from the visiting bench Monday morning at Ball Arena,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1466,2031,1116,192,144,5277,5,11999,1544,1180,1262,4,1340,43,14],"class_list":["post-506726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-ball-arena","tag-bowen-byram","tag-cale-makar","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-hockey","tag-ilya-solovyov","tag-josh-manson","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-nhl","tag-samuel-girard","tag-sports","tag-stanley-cup"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116240946421692820","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506726","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=506726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}