If the Colorado Avalanche continue their second-half surge and
reach the playoffs, they will look back at victories such as
Wednesday night’s as a reason.
Colorado trailed 2-0 early in the second period and rallied for a
5-2 win over the Calgary Flames. It put the Avalanche one point
behind the second wild card and continued their home dominance.
But the 12-1 record at Pepsi Center since Dec. 27 will mean little
if Colorado can’t continue to pile up wins and make the postseason
for the first time in four seasons. What is significant is most of
those wins have come against teams in playoff position or close to
it.
Half of the current four-game homestand is in the books, but now
Colorado (34-24-5) is facing two tough games to keep pace in the
Western Conference. Nashville, which leads the Central Division, is
in Denver on Sunday but the Avalanche can’t afford to look ahead to
that game. That’s because the streaking Minnesota Wild visit on
Friday night.
Minnesota (36-21-7) comes in after Thursday’s night’s 5-3 loss in
Arizona and has hurt the Avalanche over the past five seasons. The
Wild rallied to upset Colorado in seven games in the first round of
the 2014 postseason and continued to dominate the series in the
ensuing years.
Add to that the fact that Minnesota is one of the hottest teams in
the NHL right now and it’s a tough matchup for Colorado. But the
Avalanche have dealt with tough situations while battling for
playoff positioning.
“There’s pressure to play well,” defenseman Tyson Barrie said after
Wednesday’s game. “It’s so hard to make the playoffs in this league
and a bunch of us have been here a long time and only had one crack
at it. We don’t want it to slip away. We’ve worked so hard all year
to put ourselves in position. At the same time you look at where we
are from last year, so it’s not all that pressure of being a top
seed.”
The Wild had won five straight before Thursday night and moved into
third in the Central Division with 18 games left. A big reason
Minnesota is streaking is the play of forward Eric Staal, who had a
hat trick in Tuesday’s 8-3 victory over St. Louis.
Staal was named the NHL’s First Star for February on Thursday. He
had 13 goals and eight assists to lead the Wild to a 9-2-2 mark in
the month and was rewarded with much-deserved recognition.
“It is an honor,” Staal told The Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “This is
a great league with a lot of great players so to be recognized in
that respect is nice for sure. It (speaks) a lot to the guys that
I’m playing with. We have a great team and a good thing going,
especially over this last month. You want to continue to carry that
and hopefully continue it here heading into March.”
Center Eric Staal and his Wild teammates will be looking to rebound on Friday night in Colorado
Staal and his teammates face a banged-up Colorado defensive corps
Friday. The Avalanche are without their top defenseman, Erik
Johnson, who is out indefinitely with a shoulder injury. They got
good news at Thursday’s practice when Anton Lindholm was activated
from injured reserve after missing five games with an elbow injury.
Lindholm rejoins a group that has played well of late. The defense
scored three of the five goals against the Flames, including Duncan
Siemens’ first NHL goal.
Colorado will need that production to beat the red-hot Wild and
keep up hopes of reaching the postseason for the first time since
2014.
“We have a deep hunger to get to where we want to go,” coach Jared
Bednar said Wednesday night. “That’s what it comes down to.”
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