Colorado Avalanche Aim to Keep in Win Column vs Tough Boston Team

The Colorado Avalanche will host the Boston Bruins in the first of a two-game homestand. They hope to keep the winning up at home.

The Colorado Avalanche are back for some home cooking as they host the Boston Bruins tonight. They have this game and the one on Friday against Washington before they head out Cali way for a three-game road trip.

This is only Colorado’s second game at home this month. Their last game was a 4-1 loss against their Central Division rival Nashville Predators. Prior to that, they had taken three of their five games at home.

Colorado will be facing a tough opponent in the Boston Bruins. Boston is 10-5-2 and currently enjoying a three-game winning streak. In each of those games, they limited opponents to just one goal. However, those were all home games for Boston — on the road, they’ve gone 2-2-2. And they have trouble scoring in other buildings.

Historically, the Avalanche have done very well against the Boston Bruins, going 21-10-0-1 (ties) all time. Last season, Colorado took both games.

As noted, the Bruins are coming in during a three-game win streak that the Avs are hoping to snap. Colorado halted a five-game losing streak with a victory in Edmonton on Sunday.

How to Enjoy the Game

Game time: November 14, 8:00 pm MT
TV Networks: Alt, NESN (Bryins’ feed)
Radio: Altitude Radio (FM 92.5)

Game Management

I feel like I can just copy and paste a section about game management in every other, every couple of these posts. However, the Colorado Avalanche did a great job of managing their game against the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday. Play got a little lopsided in the third period, but not like we’ve seen pretty much all year.

But for this posts I want to talk more about games management. Not just controlling the play in a single game, but controlling themselves over the span of a few games. The Avs showed early on in the year that they have the focus to recover quickly from mistakes and not let said mistakes decide the game.

Colorado had a good game against the Oilers. They need to have a good game tonight against a Bruins team that hasn’t been scoring much or playing too well on the road. That’s what home cooking is all about.

Goalie Battle

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The Colorado Avalanche have already announced that Semyon Varlamov will be in net against the Bruins. Like the team itself, Varlamov started out hot. He’s cooled off some recently. However, he still boasts a .929 save percentage and 2.26 goals against average. On Sunday, he stopped 26 of the 27 shots he faced.

The Boston Bruins have already announced that Jaroslav Halak will be in net. Goalie Tuukka Rask was on a leave of absence to attend to family matters, but he’s back now. Nonetheless, coach Bruce Cassidy has announced Halak will get the start.

That’s not great. Even though Vezina winner Rask will be sitting on the sidelines, Halak has been the better goalie for Boston this season. He has a 1.77 goals against average and .945 save percentage.

Top Line Battle

Truthfully, the marquis matchup in this game is going to be a battle between the two top lines. Even if they don’t take the ice against each other, everyone is going to be watching to see which is the better top line.

Well, the Avalanche’s top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Gabriel Landeskog has 69 points (28 goals, 41 assists, nice). The Bruins’ top line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand (not nice) has 68 points (31 goals, 37 assists).

Mikko Rantanen is the leading scorer in the NHL with 26 points (6 goals, 20 assists), followed by Patrice Bergeron with 25 points (9 goals, 16 assists), followed by Nathan MacKinnon with 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists) followed by David Pastrnak with 23 points (16 goals, 7 assists).

This is going to be an electric matchup.

After tonight, the Colorado Avalanche host the Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals before heading on the road. They’ll face the Bruins one more time, in Boston on February 10.