Where exactly Graves will fit on the team's defense won't be known until closer to game time. Kyle Burroughs and Dan Renouf both played on Saturday in spots previously held by Graves and Samuel Girard, who is out roughly two weeks with a lower-body injury he sustained on Friday as well.
Goaltender Philipp Grubauer is expected to get the start in net after he made 21 saves in a shutout victory against the Sharks on Friday--his first game since missing two and a half weeks while in the NHL's COVID protocol. Grubauer owns a 7-2-1 all-time record against San Jose, including a 4-1-0 mark, 1.61 goals-against average, .935 save percentage and three shutouts versus the Sharks this season.
The Avs and Sharks are in the middle of playing four-straight contests against one another, with Colorado winning the first two at home in a back-to-back. The teams close out their season series tonight and Wednesday in San Jose, which also serves as the first two stops of the Avs' five-game road trip.
On Sunday, Dennis Gilbert, Jonas Johansson, Jayson Megna and Alex Newhook were recalled to the team's taxi squad from the American Hockey League's Colorado Eagles. Bednar said following after today's skate that Newhook--a first-round pick by the Avs in the 2019 draft--could possibly make his NHL debut sometime during this trip.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup for this evening's game, with the forward combinations and defensive pairings based on the start of Saturday's outing. They are subject to change.
Forwards
92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 96 Mikko Rantanen
95 Andre Burakovsky - 17 Tyson Jost - 13 Valeri Nichushkin
34 Carl Soderberg - 91 Nazem Kadri - 72 Joonas Donskoi
44 Kiefer Sherwood - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 37 J.T. Compher
Defensemen
7 Devon Toews - 8 Cale Makar
24 Patrik Nemeth - 22 Conor Timmins
27 Ryan Graves - 2 Dan Renouf OR 88 Kyle Burroughs
Goaltenders
31 Philipp Grubauer
40 Devan Dubnyk
Scratch: Liam O'Brien
Taxi Squad: Dennis Gilbert, Jonas Johansson, Peyton Jones, Jayson Megna, Alex Newhook
Injury Report: Bowen Byram (upper body), Matt Calvert (upper body), Pavel Francouz (lower body), Samuel Girard (lower body), Erik Johnson (upper body), Jacob MacDonald (lower body), Logan O'Connor (lower body), Brandon Saad (lower body)
