Avalanche at Lightning preview

AVALANCHE (12-12-2) at LIGHTNING (19-6-2)
7:30 p.m. ET, SUN, ALT, NHL.TV

The Lightning are three points ahead of the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division, and lead the NHL with 40 points.
The Avalanche, who look to avoid their fourth straight loss, will be bolstered by the return of forward Gabriel Landeskog, who served a four-game suspension for a crosscheck against Calgary Flames forward Matthew Tkachuk on Nov. 25.
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov leads the NHL with 40 points (19 goals, 21 assists), and center Steven Stamkos is second with 38 points (11 goals, 27 assists).
Tampa Bay and Colorado will play twice in a nine-day span; they'll play at Pepsi Center on Dec. 16.

Players to watch

Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon has 16 points (five goals, 11 assists) in his past 10 games, and has 12 points (five goals, seven assists) in eight games against Tampa Bay.
Kucherov has six points (two goals, four assists) during a four-game point streak, and 19 points (six goals, 13 assists) in his past 13 games for the Lightning.

They said it

"I'm really excited to get back. Any time you're sitting out it can be frustrating and it can be hard because you're not part of it. Win or lose, you want to be out there." -- Avalanche forward Gabriel Landeskog, on returning after his suspension
"We expect a tough matchup. I think at this point every team that comes in here looks at this game as a big challenge and a big test for them, so we have to be ready. That's the bottom line." -- Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman

Avalanche projected lineup

Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen
Tyson Jost -- Alex Kerfoot -- J.T. Compher
Matt Nieto -- Carl Soderberg -- Blake Comeau
Sven Andrighetto -- Colin Wilson
Nikita Zadorov -- Erik Johnson
Patrik Nemeth -- Tyson Barrie
Samuel Girard -- Mark Barberio
Anton Lindholm
Semyon Varlamov
Jonathan Bernier
Scratched:Duncan Siemens](https://www.nhl.com/player/duncan-siemens-8476464?season=20172018), Nail Yakupov, Gabriel Bourque
Injured:Vladislav Kamenev](https://www.nhl.com/player/vladislav-kamenev-8477973?season=20172018) (arm)

Lightning projected lineup

Vladislav Namestnikov -- Steven Stamkos -- Tyler Johnson
Ondrej Palat -- Brayden Point -- Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn - Yanni Gourde --
Cory Conacher
Chris Kunitz - Cedric Paquette -- Ryan Callahan
Victor Hedman -- Andrej Sustr
Mikhail Sergachev -- Anton Stralman
Slater Koekkoek -- Dan Girardi
Peter Budaj
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Scratched: JT Brown, Jamie McBain
Injured:Jake Dotchin (undisclosed), Braydon Coburn (lower body)

Status report

Nemeth will play after missing the past 14 games because of a lower-body injury. ... Dotchin continues to participate in morning skates and hopes to return to the lineup within a week. ... Budaj will get his fifth start of the season.

Stat pack

Kerfoot has five points (one goal, four assists) in his past four games. … Kucherov is the third Lightning player to reach the 40-point mark by the 27th game of the season, joining Stamkos in 2010-11 (25 games) and center Vincent Lecavalier in 2007-08 (26 games).