Colorado Avalanche Looking to Keep Lightning in a Bottle

The Colorado Avalanche hope to keep up with their winning ways when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Pepsi Center in the first of two meetings.

The Colorado Avalanche are facing the Tampa Bay Lightning for the first time this season when they host the Bolts at Pepsi Center. They will meet the Eastern Conference team just one more time this year.

The two teams have met a total of 33 times since the Avs came to Colorado. In that time, the Avalanche have gone 17-11-2-3 (ties). Last season, though, the Bolts took both games.

As we well know, the top guns for Colorado have been the ones carrying the day. For the Bolts, though, their top scorers are Brayden Point (8 points) and Yanni Gourde (8 points) with stars star Nikita Kucherov at 7 points, and Steven Stamkos slacking off with 3.

The Bolts care coming off a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks (Thanks for that!). The Avs, of course, are coming off a road trip that saw them go 3-0-1. The beat the Philadelphia Flyers 4-1.

How to Enjoy the Game

Game time: October 24, 7:30 pm MT
TV Networks: NBCSN
Radio: Altitude Radio (FM 92.5)

Home Cooking

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The Colorado Avalanche are a dominant team at home. Last season they won around 70% of their games at home. It’s the altitude. Well, that’s a little facetious, but it’s also somewhat true.

This season, the Avs’ home identity has been to out-skate opponents in the mile-high air. When the opponents finally get winded, Colorado’s superior conditioning — insisted upon by the coaching staff — takes over.

The Avalanche have a 2-0-1 record at home this season with their lone overtime loss coming against the Calgary Flames. That was a game that saw the team go up early then let their foot off the gas. I think the Avs have learned their lesson and won’t make that mistake again.

Dynamic Duos (and Trios!)

The Colorado Avalanche have the top line in hockey. Even those East Coast snoots, who can’t be bothered to watch hockey that starts later than 7 pm ET have noticed that the hottest line in the NHL resides here in little old Colorado.

Check out NHL Network giving them some love:

ESPN named captain Gabriel Landeskog the “best player in the world of the week:”

Landeskog was also named the NHL’s #1 star of the week thanks to his seven goal in four games. Yet he got left out of TSN’s Avs love:

Boy, what’s it going to take to get some respect around here?

The Tampa Bay Lightning will try to match up their best defensemen against the top line. But maybe that will just give some of the other lines room to score.

Record Shooting

In the game against the Chicago Blackhawks, the Lightning set an NHL record with 33 shots on goal… in a single period. Well, joke’s on them — the Avs love to give up shots on goal. 😳

Here’s what Bolts forward Alex Killorn had to say about that period:

Like I said, joke’s on them because the Colorado Avalanche are regularly getting outshot. Unfortunately for other teams, the Avs have one of the hottest goalie tandems in the NHL. All the talk is about Colorado’s nuclear hot top line, but the goal tending ain’t too shabby.

After tonight the Colorado Avalanche have their first back-to-back series. They host the Ottawa Senators on Friday then travel to Minnesota to

beat

take on the Wild.