Avalanche Rings In New Year Against Rangers

The Colorado Avalanche wraps up the 2016 calendar year on Saturday evening at Pepsi Center, hosting the New York Rangers at 6 p.m. MT.
The Avalanche enters the contest sitting in seventh place in the Central Division, while the Rangers are in third place in the Metropolitan Division, just three points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets, who leads one of the NHL's tightest division races.
Colorado is 18-11-1 in 30 all-time games against the Rangers and is 8-6-0 at home, which includes a five-game winning streak that stretched from Nov. 5, 1999 through Dec. 21, 2007. The Avs have won seven of the last 10 matchups at home against New York. The teams split last season's two-game series with the road team victorious in each game.

Last Time Out

The Avalanche nearly rallied from two, two-goal deficits on the road against the Dallas Stars on Thursday night, but ultimately succumbed to its Central Division rival 4-2. Matt Duchene scored the Avs' first goal of the night for his 11th marker of the season away from Pepsi Center, which is tied for fourth in the league for road goals. The Avalanche was outshot 34-19, and Calvin Pickard stopped 30 shots.
Matt Puempel's first NHL hat trick paced the Rangers to a 6-3 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday. New York was 4-for-7 on the power play, the first time it has scored four man-advantage goals in a game since Feb. 4, 2010. Former Avalanche defenseman Nick Holden had his second straight multi-point game.

Last Time They Met

The Avalanche beat the Rangers 2-1 at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 3, 2015. Colorado raced out to a 2-0 lead with goals from Chris Wagner and Matt Duchene just 4:16 apart in the second period. Semyon Varlamov finished with 24 saves, and the Avs won 59 percent of their faceoffs on the night.

What to Watch

Limiting the Rangers' Offense
Averaging 3.34 goals per game, the Rangers bring the league's third-best offense to Pepsi Center on Saturday night. It's also an offense that's been extremely balanced, with eight players having contributed 20 or more points and six that have notched 10 or more goals so far this season. The scoring has come from more than just New York's forwards, as the Rangers are just one of four NHL teams that have three defensemen who have recorded 16 or more points this season.
"We have to make sure that we always have numbers above the puck and that we're arriving in the D zone with five guys as a pack," said Avs head coach Jared Bednar following Friday's practice at Family Sports Center. "We worked on that a little bit today here in practice. [On Thursday night] that gave us some trouble against a couple of [Dallas'] lines, getting spread out and not working above the puck early enough. It's going to be real important [Saturday] because they're a fast team and they come at you hard and they're dangerous throughout the lineup."
Playing with Discipline
Only three teams in the NHL have spent more time on the penalty kill this season than the Avalanche, which has spent a total of 219:22 down a man this season. That averages out to more than six minutes of penalty-kill time per game, something the Avalanche will look to keep in check against a team that converts on 22.4 percent of its power-play opportunities, which ranks fifth in the league.
Norwegians
Saturday's matchup features the only two active Norwegian-born players in the NHL in Avalanche left wing Andreas Martinsen and Rangers right wing Mats Zuccarello.
Zuccarello's 19 assists rank second on the Rangers and his 27 points are tied for second. Martinsen has recorded a goal and two assists in 34 appearances but has made his impact by bringing a physical presence. He leads all Avalanche skaters with 98 hits and 2.9 hits per game.
"He's an interesting guy because I think when he's on his game he brings us a physical edge," Bednar said of Martinsen. "He finishes the body, and I think that when he's skating and doing that he's an effective player for us."

Player to Watch

Colorado: Center Carl Soderberg
Soderberg has played in 204 consecutive games, a career-high ironman streak and the longest active streak on the team. Bednar has been impressed with the play of his center as of late, prompting an increase in ice time--Soderberg logged 18:35 against Dallas on Thursday night.
"I thought Carl Soderberg had a real strong game for us," Bednar said of the Stars game. "He worked hard. He's doing things great defensively so we bumped him into the middle and moved Duchene to the wing."

New York: Goaltender Henrik Lundqvist
Henrik Lundqvist enters Saturday's soiree one win away from passing Dominik Hasek to become the all-time leader in victories by a European-born goaltender in NHL history. Lundqvist is also one win away from passing Hasek for sole possession of 12th place on the NHL's all-time wins list.

Lineup Notes

Bednar indicated there could be some shuffling of lines for Saturday night's tilt but wasn't yet certain of what the lineup will look like.
What is certain is that Calvin Pickard will make his fourth consecutive start and his first career start against the Rangers while Semyon Varlamov continues to recover from a groin injury.

The Details

Before the ball drops to ring in 2017, the puck drops at 6 p.m. at Pepsi Center, and tickets are still available. The game can be watched live on Altitude TV and listened to on Altitude Sports Radio AM 950 or online at ColoradoAvalanche.com.