Avs begin season at home vs Stars
The official game preview Dallas Stars vs Colorado Avalanche.Season series: Avalanche defeated Stars twice in the preaseason (4-2 and 1-0). Calvin Pickard spent 100 minutes in the net and had 50 saves on 52 shots faced. Goals in the first match came from Joe Whitney, Francois Beauchemin, Ben Smith and Patrick Wiercioch. In the second game was the only scorer Andreas Martinsen. Radek Faksa had two goals for Stars. Stars gave a chance in the net both of their finnish tandem Antti Niemi / Kari Lehtonen. Last season these teams faced four times, Avalanche got 5 points, Stars got 4 points.
Avalanche: Saturday`s game will be the season opener for Avalanche, who are under new coach Jared Bednar this season. Colorado went 6-0-0 in the preseason, was the only undefeated team in NHL and played last exhibiton game on October 8th. They had two victories over Stars, Minnesota Wild and Los Angeles Kings. Mikhail Grigorenko led Avs with 4 goals (4 points) in the preason. Semyon Varlamov posted a 0.67 goals-against average and .978 save percentage in three preseason games.
Projected lineups:
Landeskog - MacKinnon - Iginla
Grigorenko - Soderberg - Duchene
G. Bourque - Colborne - R. Bourque
Comeau - Smith - Martinsen
Zadorov - Johnson
Beauchemin - Barrie
Tyutin - Wiercioch
Varlamov (Pickard)
Injuries: John Mitchell. Mikko Rantanen is heading to AHL San Antonio Rampage to get some action after injury. Cody McLeod will be healthy scratch.
Stars: The Stars won their first game 4:2 home vs Anaheim Ducks. Stars won despite of the rough first period, when they spent 8 minutes in penalty kill and been outshot 17-1. Niemi had 33 saves, goals came from Stephen Johns, Lauri Korpikoski, Antoine Roussel and Adam Cracknell. Roussel and Cracknell had two points. The Stars went 0-4 on the power play and 5-5 on the penalty kill in the opening game.
Projected lineups:
Benn - Seguin - Eaves
Sharp - Spezza - Hudler
Roussel - Faksa - Cracknell
Korpikoski - Shore - Ritchie
Nemeth - Klinberg
Lindell (Oleksiak) - Johns
Hamhuis - Benn
Niemi (Lehtonen)
Injuries: Ales Hemsky, Cody Eakin, Mattias Janmark.
nhl.com, stars.nhl.com, avalanche.nhl.com
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
15/10/2016 - 17:00
