Projected Lineup: Avalanche vs. Blues (April 3, 2021)

Goaltender Philipp Grubauer will be in between the pipes for the Colorado Avalanche this evening when the club wraps up its back-to-back set against the St. Louis Blues at Ball Arena.
The Avalanche won 3-2 against the Blues on Friday night, with Jonas Johansson picking up his first victory in goal with Colorado. Johansson will be the backup this evening.

Grubauer is 10-0-1 in his last 11 appearances and was named the NHL West Division Player of the Month for March on Thursday. He leads the league in wins (22-tied) and shutouts (five) and ranks first in goals-against average (1.78) and third in save percentage (.928) among netminders who have appeared in at least 10 games.
Valeri Nichushkin also returns to the lineup tonight after missing Friday's outing with an upper-body injury. He will go back on his previous line with Tyson Jost and Joonas Donskoi, while J.T. Compher will move down to a trio with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Liam O'Brien, who made his Avalanche debut on Friday. Kiefer Sherwood will be scratched tonight.
Tonight's game is the fourth of the eight-game season series between the Avs and Blues and the last one of the set to be held in Denver. The teams will meet four times in St. Louis in a matter of 11 days from April 14-24.
This evening's outing also wraps up Colorado's six-game homestand and a stretch that had them playing 15 of 17 at Ball Arena.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup for tonight's game against the Blues. All forward combinations and defensive pairings are subject to change.
Forwards
92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 96 Mikko Rantanen
20 Brandon Saad - 91 Nazem Kadri - 95 Andre Burakovsky
13 Valeri Nichushkin - 17 Tyson Jost - 72 Joonas Donskoi
38 Liam O'Brien - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 37 J.T. Compher
Defensemen
49 Samuel Girard - 7 Devon Toews
27 Ryan Graves - 8 Cale Makar
2 Dan Renouf - 34 Jacob MacDonald
Goaltenders
31 Philipp Grubauer
35 Jonas Johansson
Scratch:Kiefer Sherwood
Taxi Squad: Sheldon Dries, Keaton Middleton, T.J. Tynan, Adam Werner
Injury Report: Bowen Byram (upper body), Matt Calvert (upper body), Pavel Francouz (lower body), Erik Johnson (upper body), Logan O'Connor (lower body)