Projected Lineup: Avalanche at Stars

The Colorado Avalanche wraps up its back-to-back tonight at American Airlines Center against the Dallas Stars.
Colorado is coming off a 6-4 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday at Pepsi Center, while Dallas will be playing its first game back from the NHL Holiday Break. The Stars lost 5-1 in their last outing on Sunday versus the Calgary Flames.

Avalanche goaltender Philipp Grubauer is expected to get the start in net after Pavel Francouz guarded the pipes in the first half of the team's seventh back-to-back set of the season. Colorado will play 12 such consecutive-night series this year.
The Avs did not hold a morning skate today so the club's exact lineup won't be known until closer to game time.
Colorado is in a stretch where it plays four games in a row against division opponents. After this evening's contest in Texas, the Avs return home to host the Winnipeg Jets on New Year's Eve on Tuesday and then the St. Louis Blues in their first game of 2020 on Thursday.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup based on the forward combinations and defensive pairings from the start of Friday's contest against the Wild. They are subject to change.
Forwards
92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 96 Mikko Rantanen
95 Andre Burakovsky - 91 Nazem Kadri - 72 Joonas Donskoi
13 Valeri Nichushkin - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 11 Matt Calvert
17 Tyson Jost - 37 J.T. Compher - 83 Matt Nieto
Defensemen
49 Samuel Girard - 8 Cale Makar
27 Ryan Graves - 6 Erik Johnson
16 Nikita Zadorov - 28 Ian Cole
Goaltenders
31 Philipp Grubauer
39 Pavel Francouz
Scratches: Mark Barberio, Vladislav Kamenev
Injury Report: Colin Wilson (lower body, out indefinitely)