Morning skate report: Top line back together again

As I said to one Avalanche player in the locker room this morning, the playoffs have essentially begun for Colorado. If they’re going to make the postseason dance, they’re going to have to put their best foot forward in the final 16 games of the season. As they head into their matchup tonight against the Detroit Red Wings, they sit three points behind the final playoff spot with no games in hand.

With the floundering Red Wings coming to town, tonight is a perfect opportunity for Colorado to ‘get right’ against an inferior opponent who is jockeying for position at the bottom of the standings as they seek lottery luck in trying to find a franchise player to change their long-term fortunes after sliding to irrelevancy in recent years.

Looking to spark the Avalanche’s offense against the defensively inept Red Wings, head coach Jared Bednar decided to play the ace up his sleeve and put his big guns back together on a line.

Previously, Gabe Landeskog had been with Tyson Jost and Matt Calvert but he rejoins Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen as the Avalanche look to overwhelm the outmanned Red Wings.

Colorado’s revamped second line is a reunion of a trio that worked well together a while back but hasn’t been seen in a while as Colin Wilson takes up the left side next to Carl Soderberg and J.T. Compher continues his move across the lineup card by landing on the right side. The Compher-Soderberg connection has quietly developed this season when Bednar has looked to move Soderberg away from The Matts (Nieto and Calvert). With Nieto out for the rest of the regular season, Soderberg has taken up residence elsewhere as he continues to be Colorado’s fourth-best forward.

These shuffles leave Jost and Calvert together and Derick Brassard finds a home on their left wing. Since being acquired from Florida at the trade deadline, Brassard has scored two goals and registered seven shots on goal. After tying his career-high in points (24) on February 22 at Chicago, Calvert has gone without a point in five straight games, his longest scoreless streak since the 2019 calendar year began.

The much-maligned fourth line sees Gabriel Bourque removed from the action with Sheldon Dries taking his place and Alexander Kerfoot centering that group and Sven Andrighetto on the right side. Speaking of scoring slumps, Dries has just two points in his last 29 games, dating backing to November 14.

Much was made of the last meeting between these two teams when Calvert got pulled into the Red Wings bench and punched by Tyler Bertuzzi (yes, of THAT Bertuzzi family). The incident resulted in a suspension for Bertuzzi and some noticeable facial markings for Calvert. The Avalanche went on to win that game 2-0 before beginning a disastrous slide that lasted two months and took them from an easy playoff spot to fighting for their playoff lives for the second consecutive season.

The defense remains the same for Colorado tonight with Ryan Graves getting the healthy scratch. Just because that’s going to frustrate some people, I decided to pull some of the data and see what the on-ice results are for a couple of Avalanche defensemen. Check it out below!

Semyon Varlamov slots back in net for Colorado following a February that saw him post a .920 save percentage, the second-highest of any month this season (he posted a .950 in October).