It's NHL All-Star break time, and the Avalanche should be feeling pretty good about things following their 4-3 comeback win Wednesday in Los Angeles.
All-Star
Matt Duchene and
Gabriel Landeskog scored second-period goals, and Landeskog and
Nathan MacKinnon scored in the third to support goalie
Calvin Pickard, who made 35 saves in an outstanding effort. The Avalanche also killed all five Kings power plays.
Colorado moved back into the first wild card playoff position in the Western Conference with a 27-22-3 record and 57 points with 30 games remaining in the regular season.
The Avalanche, who return to practice Monday afternoon, have played two more games than Nashville, which trails by one point. Minnesota is two points behind and has played three fewer games. But the Avalanche have more regulation and overtime wins than both, and that would be the first tiebreaker if needed at the end of the season.
While it promises to be a race to the wire for the final two wild card berths, the Avalanche's destiny is in their hands. They play the Wild two more times, one at home and one away. They play the Predators three more times, one at home and two on the road.
The Avalanche have gone 5-1-0 in the past six games, 9-4-0 in 13 games and 15-6-2 since Dec. 12, when they began a three-game road sweep of Nashville, St. Louis and Chicago with a 3-2 win against the Predators.
Twelve of the Avalanche's remaining 30 games will be played against Central Division teams: Three with Nashville, two each with Dallas, Minnesota, St. Louis and Winnipeg, and next Tuesday's game with Chicago at the Pepsi Center. They've gone 12-3-1 so far against division opponents.
It's impossible to predict how
Semyon Varlamov's legal matters will affect him, if at all. He's a pretty stoic guy, at least in public. His former girlfriend filed a civil lawsuit against him stemming from the domestic abuse charges from two years ago that were dismissed.
BSNDenver has been doing extensive coverage of the trial. Here's the latest CIVIL SUIT story.
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It's encouraging that the Avalanche have won six of their past seven games at the Pepsi Center to improve to 12-10-3 there for the season. They've gone 10-5-0 in the past 15 games on the road, where they're 15-12-0 overall.
The power play needs to get better. Colorado sits ninth in the NHL with a 19.9 percent success rate but is 21st on the road (15.4 percent) and is 3-for-29 over the past 10 games. The Avalanche have had the second-most power plays in the league (176, four behind Arizona).
The penalty killing needs even more improvement, sitting 22nd in the league at 79.8 percent. They're 20th at home and 18th on the road. The Avalanche have been penalized 168 times, the fourth-highest total in the league.
Five players have more than 30 points: All-Star
Matt Duchene (23-19-42),
Nathan MacKinnon (18-23-41),
Carl Soderberg (10-26-36),
Gabriel Landeskog (13-22-35) and
Tyson Barrie (8-25-33).
Nick Holden and
Cody McLeod have the team's best plus/minus rating (plus-8 each),
Jarome Iginla by far the worst (minus-17).
Francois Beauchemin (6-18-24) averages a team-high 25:08 in ice time.
Varlamov has a 19-12-3 record with one shutout, a 2.59 goals-against average and .918 save percentage.
Reto Berra, who has resumed on-ice activity after hurting his ankle Dec. 21, is 5-8-0 with two shutouts, a 2.41 average and .922 save percentage. Pickard has a 3-2-0 record with a 2.89 average and .910 save percentage.
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • 
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