It has taken until the middle of March for the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers to face-off this year, but they’ll see a lot of each other over the final 33 days of the regular season.

Saturday night is the first of three matchups between the Oilers and Avalanche over the next month, which means we’ll get an awful lot of the “McDavid vs. MacKinnon” narrative in the National media, particularly for this game, seeing as how it’s on Hockey Night in Canada. An NHL game is never just between two players though, and MacKinnon will be getting some real important reinforcements back on his side.

Jonathan Drouin, Artturi Lehkonen, and Zach Parise are all expected to return to the lineup on Saturday night for the Avalanche against the Oilers. Where they line up is a bit of an unknown, but those are some pretty solid additions to make. Drouin will head right back to the top powerplay unit, while Lehkonen appears slated to play on the second unit. To make room for these guys on the roster, Fredrik Olofsson was sent back to the Colorado Eagles.

There’s always good news and bad news when it comes to the Avalanche, though. Miles Wood and Cale Makar both missed morning skate due to illness. While both are expected to play, you never know with illness, and it’s been running through the team of late. That will be something to monitor right up until gametime. The Avalanche are still carrying and extra forward and defenseman on the trip, if needed.

Alexandar Georgiev will start in net for the Avalanche against the Oilers.

I was on Edmonton radio last night previewing the game. You can listen to that radio hit here. I’ll be on Edmonton Sports Talk again tonight at 6:45 MST doing the same.

Expected Colorado Avalanche Lines (best guess)

Artturi Lehkonen – Nathan MacKinnon – Mikko Rantanen

Jonathan Drouin – Casey Mittelstadt – Valeri Nichushkin

Miles Wood – Ross Colton – Yakov Trenin

Brandon Duhaime – Andrew Cogliano – Zach Parise

Defense

Devon Toews – Cale Makar

Samuel Girard – Josh Manson

Jack Johnson – Sean Walker

Starting Goaltender

Alexandar Georgiev

Expected Edmonton Oilers Lines

Nugent-Hopkins – McDavid – Hyman

Mcleod – Draisaitl – Foegele

Kane – Henrique – Brown

Janmark – Carrick – Perry

Defense

Ekholm – Bouchard

Nurse – Desharnais

Kulak – Ceci

Starting Goaltender

Stuart Skinner

Special Teams

Colorado Avalanche Power Play: 24.9%, 6th in NHL

Colorado Avalanche Penalty Kill: 814%, 9th in NHL

Edmonton Oilers Power Play: 26.7%, 3rd in NHL

Edmonton Oilers Penalty Kill: 79.8%,14th in NHL

How to Watch

TV: ESPN+, Altitude

Radio: 92.5 FM Radio

Game Time: 8:00 PM MST