Game 18 - Avalanche at Penguins

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7:00 p.m.

Root Sports/105.9 The X

Non-plural team names suck.  No idea what to even think about the Avalanche.  They were garbage last year.  So they responded to that by trading a potential lottery pick this year for Varlamov.  They do come into tonight's game at 8-8-1, so they aren't nearly as bad this year, although they are 3-6-1 in their last 10 games.

The big news is the recent naming of Milan Hejduk as the captain.  The 35 year old is the last remaining member of the 2001 Stanley Cup team left in Colorado. 

They are a young team as well, with only 3 players over the age of 30.  Matt Duchene and Erik Johnson are the big name young guns here, with Johnson being the first overall pick in the 2006 draft, just ahead of Jordan Staal.  Three players on the Avalanche active roster can't legally drink as of today.

Lines from EmptyNetters
(These are guesses given the injury situaiton)

PENS

Steve Sullivan - Evgeni Malkin - James Neal
Chris Kunitz - Jordan Staal - Pascal Dupuis
Matt Cooke - Richard Park - Arron Asham
Eric Tangradi - Joe Vitale - Craig Adams

Brooks Orpik - Kris Letang
Paul Martin - Deryk Engelland
Alexandre Picard - Matt Niskanen

Marc Andre Fleury

AVALANCHE

Joakim Lindstrom - Paul Stastny - Milan Hejduk
T.J. Galiardi - Matt Duchene - David Jones
Gabriel Landeskog - Ryan O’Reilly - Daniel Winnik
Cody McLeod - Kevin Porter - Chuck Kobasew

Erik Johnson - Ryan Wilson
Shane O'Brien - Kyle Quincey
Ryan O'Byrne - Jan Hejda

Semyon Varlamov

Since we can't find an appropriate video about some epic Pens - Avs game, why not watch Varlamov get destroyed in Game 7 in 2009?

It never gets old.

Go Pens