Lightning at Avalanche preview

LIGHTNING (5-1-1) at AVALANCHE (6-1-2)
9:30 p.m. ET; NBCSN
The Game
Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen will each look to extend his point streak to begin the season to a team-record 10 games for the Colorado Avalanche when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning at Pepsi Center on Wednesday.

MacKinnon (eight goals, seven assists) and Rantanen (four goals, 12 assists) are the sixth and seventh players in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history with at least a point in nine straight games to start a season, joining John-Michael Liles (nine games, 2010-11) as the only Avalanche players to do it.
Mats Sundin (30 games, 1992-93), Peter Stastny (16 games, 1987-88), Joe Sakic (12 games, 1988-89) and Wendel Clark (10 games, 1994-95) had longer streaks with the Nordiques.
MacKinnon and Landeskog are the first Avalanche teammates with points in nine straight games to start a season; the NHL record is 15 games, set by Bobby Orr (eight goals, 16 assists) and Phil Esposito (19 goals, 15 assists) of the Boston Bruins in 1973-74.
The Lightning, 4-0-1 in their past five games, look to extend their point streak to six. Tampa Bay had an NHL record 33 shots on goal in the second period and a team record 55 shots on goal in a 6-3 win against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday.

Players to watch

Avalanche forward Gabriel Landeskog has 10 points (seven goals, three assists) in a five-game point streak.
Lightning forward Brayden Point has eight points (five goals, three assists) in his past six games.

They said it

"We expected good things out of ourselves. We expect this group is going to take the next step. I'm not saying we have yet. There's a lot of hard work yet to be done, but it's a good start."-- Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog
"These are the kind of games you want to play. We're playing a good team and we've been playing well. It's a tough challenge. Their top line has been on fire and it's fun to play those type of games." -- Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman

Lightning projected lineup

Yanni Gourde -- Brayden Point -- Steven Stamkos
Ondrej Palat -- Tyler Johnson -- Nikita Kucherov
Alex Killorn -- Anthony Cirelli -- Mathieu Joseph
J.T. Miller -- Cedric Paquette -- Ryan Callahan
Victor Hedman -- Dan Girardi
Ryan McDonagh -- Anton Stralman
Braydon Coburn -- Mikhail Sergachev
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Louis Domingue
Scratched:Adam Erne, Slater Koekkoek
Injured: None

Avalanche projected lineup

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

Status report

Koekkoek is expected to make his season debut against the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday or against the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday.

Stat pack

Vasilevskiy has allowed two goals or fewer in four of five starts … Gourde has eight points (four goals, four assists) in a six-game point streak. … The line of Landeskog (seven), Rantanen (three) and MacKinnon (two) has scored 12 of Colorado's 14 goals the past four games … Varlamov has allowed two goals or fewerin five of six starts.