Oilers-Avalanche Preview

Matt Duchene and P.A. Parenteau are surging for the Colorado Avalanche. The team's top scorers will try to help Colorado win its sixth straight at home Tuesday night against an Edmonton Oilers club finishing up a lengthy trip. Duchene has seven points in his last three games after scoring his second goal of Sunday's 3-2 victory over San Jose just before time expired in overtime. He got his first power-play goal of the season earlier in the contest. The center leads Colorado (10-10-4) with 26 points - one more than Parenteau, who has 10 points during a career-best six-game streak. The Avalanche are enjoying their longest home win streak since an eight-game run last season. "Everything is within reach now," coach Joe Sacco told the Avalanche's official website. "I like the fact that our team is coming to form." Duchene has six points in three 2013 meetings with Edmonton (9-11-5) and 11 in nine career home games against the Oilers, who sit one point behind the Avalanche in the crowded Western Conference standings Edmonton is wrapping up a nine-game trip necessitated by the Canadian men's curling championship being held at Rexall Place. The Oilers ended a five-game slide with Sunday's surprising 6-5 victory at Chicago, improving to 2-4-2 on the trip. "We wanted to come on this trip and get nine points, and we have six now," captain Shawn Horcoff said. "We win in Colorado and for all the doom and gloom, we're not out of it. We have 22 games left after that game, the majority of them at home." Horcoff scored in his return after missing 15 games with a broken knuckle, but the Oilers have fresh concerns over goalie Devan Dubnyk. Dubnyk left in the second period Sunday after a collision with teammate Teemu Hartikainen, lying on the ice for several minutes before he was escorted off. "We don't see any signs of head injury," coach Ralph Krueger said. "We didn't see anything but a situation where there was a lot of risk in putting him back in there." Yann Danis replaced Dubnyk and stopped 21 of 24 shots to preserve the win. Sam Gagner scored twice for Edmonton, which took a 4-0 lead into first intermission and held on. "We wanted to respond after the last couple of games and we did a good job of that in the first," Gagner said. "We got away from it a bit in the last two periods, but we were able to hang on to the win and that's the important thing." Edmonton has won two of three against Colorado, with the home team taking every matchup. The Avalanche didn't have Ryan O'Reilly for any of those games, but the center is back and has four points in his last three contests. Colorado is 44 for 47 on the penalty kill at home, including 3 for 3 against Edmonton. The Oilers went 6 for 10 on the power play in their home wins over the Avalanche, with Jordan Eberle and Ales Hemsky each scoring twice with the man advantage.