The Avs didn't have a morning skate today so the status of either player won't be known until closer to game time.
Earlier on Saturday morning, the Avalanche recalled defenseman Dan Renouf and goaltenders Hunter Miska and Adam Werner to its taxi squad from the American Hockey League's Colorado Eagles and reassigned goalie Jonas Johansson. The Eagles wrap up their three-game homestand versus the Ontario Reign this evening in Loveland.
If Girard and/or Graves can't play against the San Jose, Renouf and fellow taxi-squad D-man Kyle Burroughs are the likely substitutes on the backend.
Devan Dubnyk is expected to get the start in net for Colorado after Philipp Grubauer posted a 21-save shutout in a 3-0 win over the Sharks in the first half of a back-to-back set at Ball Arena on Friday. It was Grubauer's first game since April 12 after spending most of the past two and a half weeks in the NHL's COVID-19 protocol.
Tonight's contest is the second of four straight between Colorado and San Jose, as the series shifts to Northern California for games on Monday and Wednesday at SAP Center.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup for tonight's game, with the forward combinations based on the alignment from Friday. The defensive pairings 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
49 Samuel Girard AND/OR 27 Ryan Graves AND/OR 88 Kyle Burroughs AND/OR 2 Dan Renouf
Goaltenders
40 Devan Dubnyk
31 Philipp Grubauer
Scratch: Liam O'Brien
Taxi Squad: Kyle Burroughs, Nick Henry, Peyton Jones, Hunter Miska, Dan Renouf, Mike Vecchione, Adam Werner
Injury Report: Bowen Byram (upper body), Matt Calvert (upper body), Pavel Francouz (lower body), Ryan Graves (upper body), Samuel Girard (undisclosed), Erik Johnson (upper body), Jacob MacDonald (lower body), Logan O'Connor (lower body), Brandon Saad (lower body)
