Blackhawks at Avalanche preview

BLACKHAWKS (32-31-10) at AVALANCHE (33-29-12)
3 p.m. ET; ESPN+, SN1, ALT, NBCSCH, NHL.TV

Forward Mikko Rantanen won't play after sustaining an undisclosed injury a 3-1 win against the Dallas Stars on Thursday.
Colorado has outscored opponents 9-2 in a three-game winning streak after going 2-5-0 in its previous seven games.
The Blackhawks are five points behind the Wild for the second wild card. They have lost two straight games (0-1-1) after winning five in a row.

Players to watch

Blackhawks forward Alex DeBrincat has 17 points (nine goals, eight assists) in his past 15 games, but is pointless in his past two games.
Avalanche goalie Philipp Grubauer is 5-2-0 with three shutouts, a 0.85 goals-against average and .972 save percentage in his past eight games (seven starts).

They said it

"If the performance is good, we'll get our points. I'm aware of the standings, I'm aware we need points, but it's how we play that matters." -- Blackhawks coach Jeremy Colliton
"I like the urgency and the intensity that we're playing with. It just looks like it means a lot to our guys right now. No passengers throughout our lineup. Everyone's contributing the way that they can. There's a lot of sacrifice in our game." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar

Blackhawks projected lineup

Dylan Sikura -- Jonathan Toews -- Patrick Kane
Alex DeBrincat -- Dylan Strome -- Brendan Perlini
Brandon Saad -- Artem Anisimov -- Dominik Kahun
Chris Kunitz -- David Kampf -- Marcus Kruger
Duncan Keith -- Brent Seabrook
Carl Dahlstrom -- Erik Gustafsson
Gustav Forsling -- Connor Murphy
Corey Crawford
Cam Ward
Scratched:John Hayden, Slater Koekkoek
Injured: Drake Caggiula (concussion)

Avalanche projected lineup

Derick Brassard -- Nathan MacKinnon -- J.T. Compher
Colin Wilson -- Carl Soderberg -- Andrew Agozzino
Alex Kerfoot -- Tyson Jost -- Matt Calvert
Gabriel Bourque -- Sven Andrighetto
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Tyson Barrie
Nikita Zadorov -- Patrik Nemeth
Ryan Graves
Philipp Grubauer
Semyon Varlamov
Scratched: Mikko Rantanen
Injured: Mark Barberio (leg), Vladislav Kamenev (shoulder), Gabriel Landeskog (upper body), Matt Nieto (leg)

Status report

Caggiula didn't travel to Denver. He was injured Feb. 27 against the Anaheim Ducks and has missed nine games.

Stat pack

Kane has seven points (one goals, six assists) in his past nine games after he had 44 points (18 goals, 26 assists) in his previous 22 games … MacKinnon has nine points (four goals, five assists) in his past eight games.