Columbus @ Colorado preview

Last Meeting ( Oct 9, 2018 ) Colorado 2, Columbus 5

The Colorado Avalanche have fallen out of the wild-card position in the Western Conference and the skidding Columbus Blue Jackets are trying to avoid doing the same in the East. Mired in a season-worst five-game losing streak, the Blue Jackets will try to get back on track when they open a three-game road trip with a visit to the spiraling Avalanche on Tuesday night.

Columbus is clinging to the second wild card, following a four-game winning streak with the current slide that reached five in Saturday's 4-2 home loss to St. Louis. "We have to figure it out," Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. "It's not just one guy. It's our team." Colorado has dropped 13 of its last 16 games (3-11-2) and has been outscored 14-4 in losing its last three games -- all at home. "As a group, we have to be better defensively," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "It starts there. We know we're going to create offense and get chances. That is kind of our mindset, and we get another crack at it tomorrow."

TV: 9 p.m. ET, FS Ohio (Columbus), Altitude (Colorado)

ABOUT THE BLUE JACKETS (28-20-3): Leading scorer Artemi Panarin drew the ire of Columbus' fans last week when he said he would not address his contract situation until the offseason, but it hasn't affected his play. Panarin set up both goals in Saturday's loss for his third straight two-point performance since his announcement and has seven tallies and seven assists over his last nine games. "He's just the type of player that, he's a star player, so I don't think anything fazes him," top goal scorer Cam Atkinson said of Panarin. "It's pretty crazy. A lot of guys would probably go the other way. So, I think everyone can learn something from that."

ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (22-21-8): After briefly splitting up his high-powered No. 1 line in Saturday's 5-1 drubbing by Vancouver, coach Jared Bednar had the trio of Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen back as a unit at Monday's practice. "They've been successful in the past, might as well give them the best chance," Bednar said. "We've tried them together, we've tried them apart recently, and we've seen good play out of them in most situations. I think we just got to get them back together and see if they can get us a win here." Goaltender Semyon Varlamov is 7-5-2 with a 2.34 goals-against average versus the Blue Jackets.

OVERTIME

1. Rantanen has 12 points in his last 10 games.

2. Blue Jackets C Pierre-Luc Dubois has nine points in his last nine games.

3. The road team has won seven of the last eight meetings in the series.

PREDICTION: Blue Jackets 4, Avalanche 3