Bednar said in his pregame media availability today that Compher will play on a line with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Matt Calvert. Logan O'Connor will be a healthy scratch.
The Avalanche won't make any other changes to its lineup, as the team is on a season-long, five-game winning streak. Colorado defeated Minnesota 5-1 on Thursday in a contest that it finished with 55-20 advantage in shots. It was the second-most shots in a contest in franchise history and the plus-35 shot differential set a new high mark in the Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques annals.
Goaltender Philipp Grubauer will start in net for the Avs and is looking for his 18th victory of the season, which would set a new career best for him in a single campaign. Adam Werner will be the backup netminder after the Avalanche swapped him and Hunter Miska with the Colorado Eagles on Friday.
Today's game starts at 1 p.m. MT, and it will be the second of three day contests this season at Ball Arena. It is also the final outing of the Avs' season-long, nine-game homestand, the longest continuous homestay in franchise history. Colorado is 6-1-1 after eight matchups and can tie for the second-best homestand of nine or more games in NHL history in terms of points percentage with a win.
Below is the Avalanche's projected lineup for this afternoon's contest. All forward combinations and defensive pairings are subject to change.
Forwards
92 Gabriel Landeskog - 29 Nathan MacKinnon - 96 Mikko Rantanen
20 Brandon Saad - 91 Nazem Kadri - 95 Andre Burakovsky
13 Valeri Nichushkin - 17 Tyson Jost - 72 Joonas Donskoi
11 Matt Calvert - 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare - 37 J.T. Compher
Defensemen
7 Devon Toews - 8 Cale Makar
34 Jacob MacDonald - 49 Samuel Girard
27 Ryan Graves - 4 Bowen Byram
Goaltenders
31 Philipp Grubauer
30 Adam Werner
Healthy Scratch: Logan O'Connor
Taxi Squad: Peyton Jones, Jayson Megna, Greg Pateryn, Dan Renouf, Kiefer Sherwood
Injury Report: Pavel Francouz (lower body), Erik Johnson (upper body), Conor Timmins (upper body)
