The Avalanche visited the Edmonton Oilers on Monday at Rogers Place at 7:30 p.m. MT, opening their final regular-season road trip in a meeting that also closed out the three-game season series. Colorado beat Edmonton 9-1 in Edmonton on November 8th, and the Oilers answered with a 4-3 win in Denver on March 10th.
Jared Bednar will not travel with the Avalanche on the two-game road trip because of facial fractures and a corneal abrasion, though he will not need surgery now and is expected to make a full recovery. Nolan Pratt and Dave Hakstol will coach Colorado in Edmonton and Calgary.
The Avalanche arrived after a 3-2 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday at Ball Arena, a game in which Devon Toews scored and Nick Blankenburg netted his first goal with Colorado. Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 25 of 28 shots. Edmonton came in off a 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday at Crypto.com Arena, where Anton Forsberg made 27 saves and Artemi Panarin scored the only goal.
This matchup also carried the weight of two clubs near the top of the league in key categories. Nathan MacKinnon leads the NHL with 52 goals, ranks third with 126 points and third with 74 assists. Martin Necas is tied for sixth in the league with 99 points. Scott Wedgewood leads goaltenders with at least 24 games played in goals-against average at 2.10 and save percentage at.918, and he is tied for ninth with three shutouts. Colorado's power play has clicked at 27.4% since March 1st, the sixth highest in the NHL, while the team's save percentage since April 3rd is.935, tied for the league lead.
Edmonton is led by Connor McDavid, who has 133 points, 47 goals and 86 assists. Evan Bouchard is third on the Oilers with 91 points and 70 assists, and he is tied for fourth with 21 goals. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is fourth on the club with 55 points and 36 assists.
The teams have met 136 times in the regular season, with Colorado holding a 74-50-6-6 edge, and their playoff history includes three meetings, with Avalanche wins in the 1997 Western Conference Semifinals in five games and the 2022 Western Conference Final in four contests. Monday's game was the first stop on Colorado's final road trip of 2025-26, and it came at a point when both teams had already shown they can answer each other on the biggest nights.
