Projected Lineup: Avalanche vs. Predators

Pavel Francouz will be between the pipes for the Colorado Avalanche this evening when the team takes on the Nashville Predators at Pepsi Center.
Francouz, who will be making his fifth start of the season, will be backed up by Adam Werner. The Avalanche recalled the goaltender from the American Hockey League's Colorado Eagles before today's morning skate as Philipp Grubauer is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Colorado's forward combinations will be altered a bit from how they were in the Avalanche's last outing on Tuesday at the Dallas Stars, but the groupings will not be known until closer to game time.

"They're going to be similar but different," Avs head coach Jared Bednar said of his forward lines. "They'll be a little bit of a blender going as I try and play [Nathan] MacKinnon and a couple other guys as much as I can. You'll see a bunch of different combinations, but I would rather not give out all of my lines as of this morning."
There will be one change as T.J. Tynan is expected to play his first game with the Avalanche and first NHL contest since March 11, 2017 with the Columbus Blue Jackets. Tynan leads the Eagles with 12 points (two goals, 10 assists) in 10 contests this season and was recalled from AHL Colorado on Wednesday afternoon after the Avs reassigned Jayson Megna earlier in the day.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup based on the forward combinations and defensive pairings from the start of Colorado's previous game at Dallas, with Tynan in for Megna. As Bednar said, they are expected to change.

Forwards

83 Matt Nieto - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 72 Joonas Donskoi
17 Tyson Jost - 91 Nazem Kadri - 37 J.T. Compher
95 Andre Burakovsky - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 11 Matt Calvert
13 Valeri Nichushkin - 81 Vladislav Kamenev - 36 T.J. Tynan

Defensemen

49 Samuel Girard - 6 Erik Johnson
28 Ian Cole - 8 Cale Makar
27 Ryan Graves - 16 Nikita Zadorov

Goaltenders

39 Pavel Francouz
30 Adam Werner
Healthy Scratch: 44 Mark Barberio
Injury Report: Philipp Grubauer (lower body), Gabriel Landeskog (lower body), Mikko Rantanen (lower body), Colin Wilson (lower body)