Carolina Hurricanes vs Colorado Avalanche 11/17/22 NHL Picks, Predictions, Odds

The Colorado Avalanche and the Carolina Hurricanes meet in NHL action from PNC Arena on Thursday night.

The Colorado Avalanche will try to rebound from a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues in their last game. Mikko Rantanen leads the Avs in scoring with 25 points including a team-high 11 goals and 14 assists while Nathan MacKinnon has 24 points with a team-high 20 assists. Cale Makar has 18 points with 15 assists as well this season. Alexandar Georgiev is 7-2-1 with a 2.70 GAA and a .924 save percentage while Pavel Francouz is 1-3 with a 2.86 GAA and a .912 save percentage between the pipes for Colorado this season.

The Carolina Hurricanes will look to find some consistency after alternating wins and losses in each of their last four games following a 3-0 win over Chicago last time out. Martin Necas has a team-high 19 points with 7 goals and a team-high 12 assists while Sebastian Aho also has 10 assists along with 7 goals as part of his 17 points. Andrei Svechnikov also has 18 points with a team-high 12 goals this season. Frederik Andersen has gone 5-3 with a 2.72 GAA and an .891 save percentage while Antti Raanta is 3-2-1 with a 2.47 GAA and a .911 save percentage in goal for Carolina so far this season.

Colorado is 13-4 in their last 17 road games and 76-30 in their last 106 games overall while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games against a team with a winning record. Carolina is 40-15 in their last 55 home games and 29-12 in their last 41 games against the Central division while the over is 5-1 in their last 6 Thursday games.

I get the case to be made either way here, but I’m looking at Colorado as I just feel like the defending champs should get a little bit more respect than they’re getting here against Carolina. The Carolina goaltending took a hit when Frederik Andersen went down and I don’t know if it gets better when Antti Raanta slides in goal.  I just think this one is Colorado’s game to win so give me the Avs here.