Raise your hand if you thought the Avalanche had any chance to sweep Nashville, St. Louis and Chicago on the three-game road trip that ended Tuesday with a 3-0 win against the Blackhawks.
Now, with six wins in the past eight games, the Avalanche (15-16-1) have pulled within five points of the second wild card spot in the West (and fifth place in the Central Division, basically the same thing) with nine of the next 10 games at the Pepsi Center.
Of course, while the Avalanche have been just fine on the road (11-9-0), they've been awful (4-7-1) at home. That obviously has to change starting with Thursday's game against the New York Islanders. This stretch at home is where the Avalanche have a chance to get right back into the playoff picture.
They're certainly getting the goaltending from Semyon Varlamov to get the job done. He limited the Predators, Blues and Blackhawks to a total of three goals on the trip while running his personal winning streak to a season-best four games.
Varlamov has a 0.98 goals-against average in the streak with a .969 save percentage. His season numbers are looking a lot more respectable now, too, with a 10-8-1 record, 2.60 average and .914 save percentage.
As well as Varlamov is playing, he finally got some decent defensive support in Chicago, where Patrick Kane's point-scoring streak ended at 26 games. He didn't have a shot on goal in 23:11 of ice time and had three shots blocked.
Varlamov has won eight consecutive games against the Blackhawks with a 1.19 average and .968 save percentage. He's gone 11-3-0 against them in his career with three shutouts, a 1.80 average and .949 save percentage.
"My secret? I don't have any secrets," Varlamov told reporters. "It's all about my teammates. They play well in front of me every time we're in Chicago. No secrets. I like to play (at the United Center), and (this) was a big game for us."
Varlamov had 29 saves for his first shutout of the season, 15th with the Avalanche and 19th of his NHL career.
Kane had 16 goals and 24 assists in his streak, the longest by an American-born player in NHL history and the longest in the league since Quebec's Mats Sundin had a 30-game streak in 1992-93. Kane also had a point in each of Chicago's first 16 home games with 11 goals and 16 assists.
"It was a fun run," Kane told reporters. "I think you never know what's going to happen with the streak, or there's a lot of games when it seemed like we were down and out, and you end up getting something at the end, whatever it may be. But, you know, it was fun breaking the American record. I was happy with that, and to break the franchise record too, that was pretty special as well. It was definitely fun while it lasted.
"I can just focus on playing hockey and it'll be nice not to talk about it anymore. When you have to talk about it every day, it gets a little taxing, but I'm excited just to play hockey now."
The NHL record of 51 games was set by Edmonton's Wayne Gretzky in 1983-84. He had 61 goals and 92 assists in the streak. Los Angeles ended it Jan. 28, 1984 with Markus Mattsson in goal.
*****
Matt Duchene remains hot. He opened the scoring Tuesday with what turned out to be his third game-winning goal of the season. He has 15 goals and 11 assists in the past 22 games after getting one goal and one assist in the first 10.
*****
I wasn't able to attend the Avalanche's availability Wednesday and haven't gotten any word on Francois Beauchemin, who was dazed and missed the final seven minutes of Tuesday's game after a high hit by Andrew Shaw. Shaw was given a minor charging penalty and the Chicago Tribune reported that he won't face any further discipline.
I watched video of Avalanche coach Patrick Roy's media session and he didn't address the matter. I assume that's a good sign.