Wild at Avalanche preview

WILD (0-0-0) at AVALANCHE (0-0-0)
9 p.m. ET; ALT, FS-N, FS-WI, NHL.TV

The Game

Goalie Semyon Varlamov will start his franchise-record eighth consecutive season opener when the Colorado Avalanche host the Minnesota Wild at Pepsi Center on Thursday. He will pass Patrick Roy, who started seven straight from 1996-2002. It will be Varlamov's 400th NHL game.
Wild defenseman Ryan Suter will play his first regular-season game since he fractured his right ankle March 31 against the Dallas Stars, ending his season. Suter needs nine games for 1,000 in his NHL career.

Players to watch

Goaltender Devan Dubnyk will play his 232nd game since being acquired by the Wild in a trade with the Arizona Coyotes on Jan. 14, 2015. Since the trade, he is second among NHL goalies who've played at least 150 games in wins (134) and goals-against average (2.26), and first in shutouts (20).
Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon will try to build on a season when he was a finalist for the Hart Trophy as NHL MVP after finishing fifth in the NHL with 97 points (39 goals, 58 assists) in 74 games. He has 19 points (eight goals, 11 assists) in 22 games against the Wild.

They said it

"It's tremendous. When you've been off for over four months and it's what you do, it's really exciting. I don't think there's anybody that's involved in hockey that isn't excited about getting started again." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau
"We still have a lot to prove here. I thought we took that to heart last year and we need to do it again this year in order to finish where we want to finish."--Avalanche coach Jared Bednar

Wild projected lineup

Jason Zucker -- Eric Staal -- Mikael Granlund
Zach Parise -- Mikko Koivu -- Nino Niederreiter
Joel Eriksson Ek -- Jordan Greenway -- Charlie Coyle
Marcus Foligno -- Matt Hendricks -- Eric Fehr
Ryan Suter -- Matt Dumba
Jonas Brodin -- Jared Spurgeon
Nick Seeler -- Greg Pateryn
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Scratched:JT Brown, Nate Prosser
Injured:Luke Kunin (knee)

Avalanche projected lineup

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

Status report

Dries will make his NHL debut. He had 30 points (19 goals, 11 assists) in 70 games last season with Texas of the American Hockey League. ... Bednar said Grubauer, acquired from the Washington Capitals in a trade June 22, is expected to play Saturday against the Philadelphia Flyers or Tuesday at the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Stat pack

The Wild are 9-6 with one shootout loss and one tie in season openers but are 4-0-0 against the Avalanche … Colorado is 14-5-3 in openers since the franchise moved from Quebec for the 1995-96 season, including 12-4-2 at Pepsi Center.