Blackhawks at Avalanche preview

BLACKHAWKS (10-10-5) at AVALANCHE (15-8-2)
9 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ALT, NBCSCH, NHL.TV

The forward has missed 16 games with a lower-body injury sustained against the St. Louis Blues on Oct. 21. Colorado has gone 8-7-1 without Rantanen, who has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in nine games.
Blackhawks forward Patrick Kane will try to extend his point streak to 15 games. He had a goal in a 5-2 loss to Colorado at United Center on Friday and has 23 points (10 goals, 13 assists) in a 14-game streak, the longest in the NHL this season.
Robin Lehner is expected to start for the Blackhawks, who are 1-3-1 in their past five games after going 5-0-1 in their previous six.
Philipp Grubauer is expected to start for the Avalanche, who have won two straight games and are 7-3-0 in their past 10.

Players to watch

Blackhawks forward Brandon Saad has 10 points (four goals, six assists) in his past 12 games.
Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon has 13 points (five goals, eight assists) in a six-game point streak.

They said it

"They'll be even better in their own building, so it's going to be a tough game. We've played well on the road as of late. I think we can take that same mentality, that same approach in Colorado." -- Blackhawks center Jonathan Toews
"It's exciting, especially for our power play. We need him, it's been tough. It's exciting to get one of the best players in the world back on our team. I think people forget that we're missing 200 points out of our lineup from last season." -- Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, on Mikko Rantanen's expected return

Blackhawks projected lineup

Brandon Saad -- Jonathan Toews -- Alex Nylander
Alex DeBrincat -- Kirby Dach -- Patrick Kane
Dominik Kubalik -- David Kampf -- Andrew Shaw
Zack Smith -- Ryan Carpenter -- Anton Wedin
Calvin de Haan -- Erik Gustafsson
Olli Maatta -- Brent Seabrook
Slater Koekkoek -- Connor Murphy
Robin Lehner
Corey Crawford
Scratched:Ian McCoshen
Injured:Drake Caggiula (concussion protocol), Duncan Keith (groin), Dylan Strome (concussion protocol)

Avalanche projected lineup

Joonas Donskoi -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Matt Nieto -- Nazem Kadri -- J.T. Compher
Valeri Nichushkin -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Logan O'Connor
Tyson Jost -- Vladislav Kamenev -- T.J. Tynan
Nikita Zadorov -- Cale Makar
Calle Rosen -- Samuel Girard
Ryan Graves -- Ian Cole
Philipp Grubauer
Pavel Francouz
Scratched:Mark Barberio
Injured:Andre Burakovsky (upper body), Matt Calvert (head), Erik Johnson (lower body), Gabriel Landeskog (lower body), Colin Wilson (lower body)

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Status report

Keith was injured against Colorado on Friday. There is no timetable for his return. … The Blackhawks recalled McCoshen from Rockford of the American Hockey League and reassigned forward Matthew Highmore. … Calvert and Landeskog skated with skills coach Shawn Allard in the morning. … The Avalanche reassigned forward Sheldon Dries to Colorado of the AHL.

Stat pack

Murphy will play his 400th NHL game. … Makar has 26 points (eight goals, 18 assists), the most by a defenseman in his first 25 NHL games since Larry Murphy had 28 for the Los Angeles Kings in 1980-81.