Avalanche at Flames preview

AVALANCHE (20-15-8) at FLAMES (27-13-4)
9:30 p.m. ET; ESPN+, SNW, ALT, NHL.TV

The Flames are 5-1-1 in their past seven games and have scored at least four goals in four of the past five.
The Avalanche, who will play the second of back-to-back games after a 7-4 loss at the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday, have one win in their past eight games (1-5-2) and have allowed at least five goals in two of their past three.
The game will feature three of the top four scorers in the NHL; Mikko Rantanen, second in scoring, has 66 points (19 goals, 47 assists) and Nathan MacKinnon has 65 points (25 goals, 40 assists) for Colorado. Johnny Gaudreau has 64 points (26 goals, 38 assists) for Calgary.

Players to watch

Rantanen has 37 points (12 goals, 25 assists) in his past 24 games.
Gaudreau has seven goals and six assists during a five-game point streak, and 19 points (11 goals, eight assists) in his past nine games.

They said it

"We always say we have good character, but [we don't] really care right now. It's two points that we care about. It's nice to have a good character but if you can't win, it's tough. So we just have to focus on winning."-- Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen
"It's not every day you get to see some of the players that are going to be in this building tonight playing against each other. I know our line's really excited to hopefully match up against those guys." -- Flames forward Johnny Gaudreau

Avalanche projected lineup

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Tyson Jost -- Alex Kerfoot -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Matt Calvert
Sven Andrighetto --
Sheldon Dries
--
Logan O'Connor
Samuel Girard -- Erik Johnson
Ian Cole -- Tyson Barrie
Ryan Graves
-- Patrik Nemeth
Semyon Varlamov
Philipp Grubauer
Scratched:Gabriel Bourque
Injured:Mark Barberio (upper body), Vladislav Kamenev (shoulder), Colin Wilson (upper body), Nikita Zadorov (lower body)

Flames projected lineup

Johnny Gaudreau -- Sean Monahan -- Elias Lindholm
Matthew Tkachuk -- Mikael Backlund -- Michael Frolik
Sam Bennett -- Mark Jankowski -- James Neal
Austin Czarnik -- Derek Ryan -- Garnet Hathaway
Mark Giordano -- TJ Brodie
Noah Hanifin -- Travis Hamonic
Rasmus Andersson -- Dalton Prout
David Rittich
Mike Smith
Scratched: Andrew Mangiapane, Oliver Kylington
Injured:Juuso Valimaki (lower body), Michael Stone (blood clot)

Status report

Colorado did not have a morning skate. ... Varlamov could play for the first time since Dec. 31 after Grubauer made 14 saves at Winnipeg. ... Prout will play after being a healthy scratch for nine games.

Stat pack

The line of Rantanen, MacKinnon and Landeskog has combined for 180 points (71 goals, 109 assists) this season. ... The line of Gaudreau, Monahan and Lindholm has combined for 168 points (69 goals, 99 assists). ... Rantanen is five points behind forward Nikita Kucherov of the Tampa Bay Lightning, who leads the NHL in scoring with 71 points (21 goals, 50 assists).