The Colorado Avalanche are in a spot of bother.

The defending champs are tied, 2-2, in their best-of-7 series with the Seattle Kraken and are dealing with some big lineup issues going forward.

The Avs have had a ton of injury problems all season and now Cale Makar is suspended and Valeri Nichushkin is still away from the team dealing with a personal matter. 

And that’s just off the ice.

On the ice, the Kraken are giving the heavily-favored Avs everything they can handle and have earned the split with Colorado through four games.

Can the Kraken push the Avs to the brink with an upset during Wednesday night’s NHL action?

(9:30 p.m. ET)

Not only is Seattle level with the Avs in the series, but the Kraken have basically gone toe-to-toe with Colorado in every facet of the game.

The Kraken and Avs have each scored eight goals at 5-on-5, but the Kraken have produced slightly more expected goals (9.7 to 9.4) and generated 10 more high-danger scoring chances (60 to 50) than the Avalanche.

It’s been an impressive display from Seattle, proving that depth

The goaltending battle in this series has also been noteworthy with Philipp Grubauer out-dueling Alexandar Georgiev through the first four games.

Neither Grubauer nor Georgiev have been lights out — they’ve both had good and bad moments — but the consensus before Game 1 was that the Avs were likely to have the stronger option in net after the regular season performances of both netminders. 

Whether or not Grubauer can keep up this level — he’s struggled plenty over the past two seasons — is a valid question, but he may not need to be dominant considering that Seattle is scoring enough at the other end of the ice to keep pace with the high-flying Avs. 

Even without Makar and Nichushkin, the Avs are still worthy of being a decent favorite at home in Game 5.

That said, the Kraken have proven through four games that their ability to roll four lines and play a disciplined, structured style of hockey makes them a live underdog in a matchup that nobody thought they could win. 

Seattle is the value side for Game 5 on Wednesday night. 

Kraken +160 (PointsBet)