San Jose plays Colorado, aims to end road slide

San Jose Sharks (20-24-5, sixth in the West Division) vs. Colorado Avalanche (31-12-4, second in the West Division)

Denver; Friday, 9 p.m. EDT

LINE: Avalanche -250, Sharks +202

BOTTOM LINE: San Jose travels to Colorado looking to break its four-game road slide.

The Avalanche are 31-12-4 against the rest of their division. Colorado is the NHL leader with 6.2 assists per game, led by Nathan MacKinnon averaging 1.0.

The Sharks are 20-24-5 against the rest of their division. San Jose averages 9.5 penalty minutes per game, the fourth-most in the league. Kurtis Gabriel leads the team serving 55 total minutes.

In their last meeting on March 3, Colorado won 4-0. Mikko Rantanen scored two goals for the Avalanche.

TOP PERFORMERS: MacKinnon leads the Avalanche with 42 assists and has 61 points this season. Rantanen has five goals over the last 10 games for Colorado.

Evander Kane leads the Sharks with 22 total assists and has 42 points. Tomas Hertl has three goals and six assists over the last 10 games for San Jose.

LAST 10 GAMES: Avalanche: 6-4-0, averaging 3.2 goals, 5.8 assists, 5.1 penalties and 12.4 penalty minutes while giving up 3.2 goals per game with an .881 save percentage.

Sharks: 2-7-1, averaging 2.4 goals, 3.5 assists, 4.1 penalties and 8.8 penalty minutes while allowing 3.7 goals per game with an .867 save percentage.

INJURIES: Avalanche: Jacob MacDonald: out (lower body), Bowen Byram: out (upper body), Logan O'Connor: day to day (lower body), Brandon Saad: out (lower-body), Matt Calvert: out (undisclosed), Dennis Gilbert: out (face), Joonas Donskoi: day to day (covid), Mikko Rantanen: day to day (undisclosed).

Sharks: Radim Simek: day to day (upper body), Matt Nieto: out (lower body), Ryan Donato: day to day (lower body).

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.