Projected Lineup: Avalanche at Hurricanes

RALEIGH, N.C.--The Colorado Avalanche begins its 11th back-to-back of the season tonight at PNC Arena against the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Avs, who play at the Nashville Predators on Saturday, will play 12 such consecutive-night sets this season. Colorado's last back-to-back this year takes place March 8-9 at the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings.

Goaltender Pavel Francouz will start for a season-high sixth contest in a row and will play in his seventh consecutive game. He has won each of his last four starts, posting a 0.98 goals-against average, .963 save percentage and one shutout during that stretch.
Andre Burakovsky took part in the team's morning skate after missing the previous two games with an upper-body injury, but his exact status for tonight's contest is still uncertain. Where exactly he would fit in the Avs' lineup also isn't known, but he had been playing on a line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabriel Landeskog previously.
The Avalanche has won six straight road games dating back to Feb. 4 and is one short from tying the franchise record set from Jan. 10-Feb. 7, 1999. Colorado is 7-5-3 all-time in Carolina.
Below is the Avs' projected lineup based on how the club started Wednesday's outing versus the Buffalo Sabres. All forward combinations and defensive pairings are subject to change.
Forwards
92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 13 Valeri Nichushkin
17 Tyson Jost - 37 J.T. Compher - 72 Joonas Donskoi
90 Vladislav Namestnikov - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 61 Martin Kaut
83 Matt Nieto - 81 Vladislav Kamenev - 25 Logan O'Connor
Defensemen
27 Ryan Graves - 8 Cale Makar
49 Samuel Girard - 6 Erik Johnson
28 Ian Cole - 16 Nikita Zadorov
Goaltenders
39 Pavel Francouz
35 Michael Hutchinson
Healthy Scratch: 44 Mark Barberio
Injury Report: Andre Burakovsky (upper body), Matt Calvert (lower body), Philipp Grubauer (lower body), Nazem Kadri (lower body), Mikko Rantanen (upper body), Colin Wilson (lower body)