Help may be coming for the Devils right on time. According to Inside The Rink's lineup notes, Luke Evangelista (illness) and Connor Brown (lower body, IR) were both projected back for Tuesday, October 20. That's this game, so their return would give New Jersey 2 more right wings against a team on short rest. Treat it as a target, not a sure thing. Colorado's own day-to-day list is Nicolas Roy and Zachary L'Heureux, both of whom missed the Pittsburgh game. Nobody has posted a line on this game yet, and with Colorado still playing Philadelphia first, it makes sense that nobody has.
As of Saturday, Colorado sits 5-2-1, and the results have been streaky in a familiar way. The Avs scored 7 in Calgary and then gave up 6 at home to Toronto. They split a home-and-home with Dallas: a 3-2 win on the road, then a shootout loss at Ball Arena that Roope Hintz ended, per NHL.com. Most recently they beat Pittsburgh 5-2. When the top of the lineup gets going, this team piles up goals in a hurry. The Toronto game showed the cost when it doesn't.
The injury lists hit different parts of each roster. Colorado's are mostly forward depth: Logan O'Connor is on long-term IR, Georgii Merkulov is on non-roster IR, and Roy and L'Heureux are day-to-day. That matters more than usual on a back-to-back, when the bottom 6 has to soak up minutes. New Jersey's losses go deeper: Seamus Casey is out 6-8 weeks after a knee procedure and Nick Bjugstad is on long-term IR with a pectoral injury. Check Monday's result in Philadelphia and Tuesday's morning skate before you settle on a read. Those 2 things will say more about this game than anything on the page today.