It’s probably not a surprise, but we were greeted in Denver last night with snow. Lots of snow. It’s still snowing. It’s not the kind that really sticks to the road, but it does accumulate on the grass and on top of cars. And it actually feels kind of strange because it just doesn’t feel cold enough for it to be snowing. But snowing it is.

I think this is my fourth or so trip into Denver and it’s a really beautiful site to look out on the horizon and see the Rocky Mountains off in the distance. It’s a view that I don’t think could ever get old, sort of like seeing the mountains in Vancouver, I could stare at them all day. Driving down to the arena this morning, it was a refreshing and downright picturesque scene to look down the streets and see the snow covered trees lined down each side of the street. A very Rockwell-like scene.

I’ve also noticed that for the first time visiting here that I’m struggling a bit with my breathing. There are times where I just can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. My sinuses were certainly affected last night as well as I struggled to get some good sleep and kept waking up with a dry mouth. I kept a bottle of water on the nightstand just to keep my throat moist!!

I guess it just comes with the change in altitude. Even the board inside the Lightning locker room today reminded the players to drink plenty of water today.

As far as the game tonight against the Avalanche is concerned, Olie Kolzig gets the call in goal. He’s struggled of late so he’ll look for a bounce-back effort tonight. Peter Budaj goes for Colorado.

Gary Roberts will be in the lineup tonight in place of Evgeny Artyukhin. Interim coach Rick Tocchet said he wants Artyukhin to get a look at the game from above tonight after he struggled in Friday’s game, with Tocchet stating that Minnesota had three quality scoring chances as a direct result of a mistake by Artyukhin.

So the line combos tonight will look like this:

Ryan Malone-Vinny Lecavalier-Marty St. Louis
Vinny Prospal-Steven Stamkos-Radim Vrbata
Gary Roberts-Jussi Jokinen-Mark Recchi
Ryan Craig-Adam Hall-Steve Downie

Marek Malik will miss his second consecutive game with a lower body injury, so Andrew Hutchinson goes back into the lineup. Hutchinson was a minus-3 against Minnesota, but Tocchet said he felt Hutchinson got better as the game went on, stating that it can be tough to make the quick jump from the minors to the NHL and try to pick up the speed right away.

Matt Smaby was sent back to Norfolk today, as he was essentially called up as insurance in the event Hutchinson didn’t make it through waivers on Friday. Also, Jason Ward cleared waivers today - he cleared recall waivers on Friday - and was officially reassigned back to Norfolk.

Don’t forget, tonight’s game is on WTOG, CW-44.