The Colorado Avalanche face off against the New York Islanders on Tuesday, October 24th. They are looking to continue their undefeated streak, which is impressive this far into the season. They have won the first five games of the season.
Through five games, the Colorado Avalanche have outscored their opponents 21-8.
Here’s some key information about Tuesday’s matchup against the Islanders.
How To Watch: ESPN+, ALT, and MSGSN.
Time: 6 pm MT, 8 pm ET
Injuries: The Colorado Avalanche appear to be fairly healthy, but one player who was reported as OUT indefinitely was goaltender Pavel Francouz.
On the Islanders’ side, defenseman Scott Mayfield has been out for a while with a leg injury but has hit the ice in practice as of late.
Colorado Avalanche Projected Lineup
Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Nichushkin
Tatar – Johansen – Rantanen
Wood – Colton – Drouin
Cogliano – Oloffson – O’Connor
Toews – Makar
Byram – Girard
Johnson – Manson
Georgiev
Prosvetov
The elephant in the room here is head coach Jared Bednar’s decision to bump Drouin down out of the first line to try and get more of a spark. Drouin has yet to score a goal this season and has just one assist so far while logging 14:00 minutes on the ice per game.
It’s important that the Avalanche get production out of all of their lines. They can’t just rely on the top line to score all of the goals. Only two players who are not on the top line have more than one goal this season for the Avalanche. That’s not ideal.
I feel like Bednar’s in-game line change from the other night might be the scenario heading into Tuesday’s game against the Islanders unless he has seen something significant during practice. That being said, I don’t think that we should be surprised if he makes another in-game line change as it is still early. Whether that sticks remains to be seen.
A huge change from last year to this year is the injuries so far. Colorado is relatively healthy through five games. They did a good job of replacing the injured Gabriel Landeskog as best they could.
A quick note on the Islanders’ potential lines: Locked On Islanders host Gil Martin said he personally does not like the team’s first line consisting of Bo Horvat and Anders Lee because their styles are too similar. Martin points out that the Islanders should spread those similarities to another line.
The Islanders have lost their last two games, so they could play tough and angry against the Avalanche.