{coyotes} AVALANCHE (4-7-1) at COYOTES (5-5-1)

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

{coyotes} AVALANCHE (4-7-1) at COYOTES (5-5-1)

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Thursday, November 5, 2015

9:00 PM ET

AVALANCHE (4-7-1) at COYOTES (5-5-1)

TV: ALT2, FS-A

Season series: The Colorado Avalanche won all three games against the Arizona Coyotes last season. Daniel Briere's goal 3:16 into overtime completed Colorado's rally from a 3-0 deficit in a 4-3 victory on Nov. 25. Cody McLeod and Matt Duchene scored nine seconds apart early in the first period to spark a 5-2 win on Feb. 16. Ryan O'Reilly and Jarome Iginla got the Avalanche going early again on March 19 with goals 29 seconds apart in the first en route to a 5-2 victory. Colorado forward Gabriel Landeskog led all skaters with four goals and five points.

Avalanche team scope: Colorado plays 12 of its next 15 games on the road starting Thursday at Arizona. "It will be a good test for our team," coach Patrick Roy said in video posted on the Avalanche website. "They've been playing some good hockey. It's a team that works really hard." Goalie Semyon Varlamov will start with Reto Berra playing Friday against the New York Rangers. "We feel that [Varlamov] played well on the road, I want to see [Varlamov] on the road," Roy said. "Plus, Arizona is a conference team." Eight players skated Wednesday including forward John Mitchell, who remains day-to-day with an oblique injury, according to the Denver Post. The Avalanche have scored nine goals in their past two games since Roy moved Iginla on a line with Nathan MacKinnon and Alex Tanguay, and Landeskog with Duchene and Carl Soderberg. "We've got to push the envelope and make sure that [Friday] is another step further," Tanguay said.

Coyotes team scope: Arizona returns to action five days after a 4-3 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 30. The Coyotes played three sets of back-to-backs and seven of their first 11 games on the road. "It was good to get some time off after that heavy schedule we had, but everybody's real excited to get back now," forward Tobias Rieder said in video posted on the Coyotes' YouTube channel. "I think we're ready to go." Forward Martin Hanzal, who missed the past two games with a lower-body injury, told the Arizona Republic he's 100 percent. "It was a minor injury," coach Dave Tippett said. "We knew it was going to be short term." Forward Antoine Vermette is day-to-day with a lower-body injury and questionable to play. Defenseman Stefan Elliott (upper body) is also day-to-day and won't play.