Playing its third game in four nights, the Colorado Avalanche will attempt to beat the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins off a healthy dose of adrenaline Friday night.
The Avalanche split back-to-back, home-and-home contests against the Dallas Stars on Tuesday and Wednesday, both by 3-2 final scores. Colorado managed to earn three of four points in the mini-series thanks to a shootout loss in the second game.
Gabriel Landeskog and Brock Nelson scored on Wednesday, with Nelson’s goal 8:22 into the third period tying the game 2-2. Nazem Kadri had two assists and Scott Wedgewood made 20 saves, but was beaten by Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz in the shootout. Kadri tallied the Avalanche’s lone shootout goal.
Colorado is 1-1-1 in their last three games and 4-2-1 on the season.
Star defenseman Cale Makar returned to the lineup Wednesday after missing the previous contest for the birth of his twin sons.
“Felt really good,” Makar said. “I mean, it was a little bit different with the morning, that’s for sure. But felt really exciting, and it’s kind of a cool thought process. You have something to go back home to, so it’s pretty cool.”
Forwards Nicolas Roy (lower body) and Zachary L’Heureux (upper body) sat out Wednesday and were scheduled to be re-evaluated on Thursday.
“I would consider them day-to-day, but I don’t know how accurate that is,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said.
Dave Hakstol, one of Bednar’s assistants coming into the season, is leaving to become head coach at Arizona State University.
Brett McLean replaces Hakstol on the Avalanche bench. He is a former assistant with the Minnesota Wild and Vancouver Canucks and played forward for Colorado, along with the Chicago Blackhawks and Florida Panthers, over a six-year playing career in the 2000s.
Sidney Crosby, captain of the 3-3-1 Penguins, scored his first two goals of the season on Tuesday, but the club dropped a 5-3 decision to the host Blackhawks.
“It wasn’t our best, but I think we did enough to be in the game,” said Crosby, who also has two assists in seven games. “You don’t play hockey that way. You’ve got to play the right way. If you leave it up to chance, that’s what happened tonight.”
Crosby has 656 goals for his career to tie Brendan Shanahan for 14th all-time.
“There’s going to be some different areas we’re going to walk out of this that we need to continue to work to clean up,” said Pittsburgh coach Dan Muse.
“It’s the same, like last year. We had one game good, one game down,” added Evgeni Malkin.
Earlier Tuesday, the Penguins acquired defenseman Ryan Johnson from the Buffalo Sabres for defensemen Caleb Jones and Daniel Laatsch.
Johnson, who compiled seven assists and a plus-1 rating in 47 games for the Sabres over the past three seasons, has spent most of his time as a pro with AHL Rochester.
“Got a lot of minutes in the AHL and got to work on a lot of things to get put in positions where you’re kind of forced to be a big part of it, a big role on the ice,” Johnson said. “So, being in that position was good for me, and I definitely enjoyed it.”
The 25-year-old replaces Trevor van Riemsdyk as the seventh defenseman for now. Van Riemsdyk is on injured reserve with a lower-body injury.
