Now the Avalanche needs to keep this run going on the road. They open a five-game road trip Monday in Washington and have stops in Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay and St. Louis.
The Avalanche (18-16-8, 44 points) won their third consecutive game Saturday 4-3 against Dallas before a loud sellout crowd at the Pepsi Center. They've won five of the past six games and are 9-3-2 since Dec. 11, which is when Matt Duchene scored his previous goal before netting the winner against the Stars.
The win moved the Avalanche one point ahead of the Stars (18-16-7, 43 points), who have played one fewer game, and within three points of the second wild card playoff berth in the West.
Goalie Semyon Varlamov had 37 saves. He stopped 36 of 37 shots after allowing two goals on the first three shots in the first period. He's turned aside 127 of 132 shots in the past three games.
FYI: Coach Patrick Roy said after the game that goalie Reto Berra will head to Lake Erie in the AHL on a "conditioning" assignment, where he'll play five games in two weeks. Calvin Pickard will be recalled and start Tuesday in Carolina. "(Berra) is working hard in practices, but he needs to play some games," Roy said.
The Avalanche killed all six Dallas power plays, which included a 33-second 5-on-3 in the second period and a 6-on-4 for the final 18 seconds in regulation when the Stars pressed for the tying goal.
Erik Johnson, who was named to the NHL All-Star Game, scored his career-high 12th goal and had six of the Avalanche's 26 blocked shots, but he also took two delay-of-game penalties for clearing the puck over the glass.
The Stars outshot the Avalanche 40-30. Counting blocked and missed shots, the count was 84-43.
"They had a lot of shots (nine) on their power play," Roy said. "This is a team that moves the puck very well. You have to have more (shots) when you're pulling the goalie; you're going to get some shots. But I thought we were a lot better in front of him. The quality of the shots and scoring chances, I thought we did a good job."
It's beginning to look a little like last season when the Avalanche managed to erase deficits and pull out wins behind terrific goaltending from Varlamov despite some pretty awful puck-possession time.
"This is the first time in the season I felt in the locker room the same feeling I had last year, that we are not afraid of losing," said Jan Hejda, who played 5:54 while shorthanded. "Everybody believed, when it was 2-0, that we were going to win this game. That was awesome."
Duchene, who had gone 12 games without a goal, scored what proved to be the winner 12 seconds into the third period for a 4-2 lead. He came from behind the net while being checked by Stars defenseman David Schlemko. He spun around in the left circle and shot the puck over goalie Kari Lehtonen's glove.
"Obviously I've been missing a lot lately, a lot of crossbars, a lot of posts, so it was nice to get that one to go in," Duchene said. "Borna (Rendulic) made a great forecheck and he turned the puck over for us. He dumped it to me on the wall. That's the kind of play I like to do. I watched Peter Forsberg do it all the time. I picked that up years ago. It was good timing for that one.
"I was pretty happy, scoring goals is the best feeling in the world. I was pretty excited. I didn't really get too down on myself, I just stayed with it believing something would go in. It was nice to get one like that too where you shoot and pick a corner rather than just banging one in."
The Stars pulled within 4-3 when Ales Hemsky converted Jason Spezza's drop pass at 2:38 of the third period and they had three more power plays, including the two-man advantage in the waning seconds.
The Avalanche scored three goals in the second period to take a 3-2 lead with Nathan MacKinnon breaking a 2-2 tie with 8.4 seconds remaining.
Max Talbot intercepted defenseman John Klingberg's attempted clear and passed to MacKinnon, who skated down the middle. He took a shot from in close and the puck appeared to roll under Lehtonen's left pad and across the goal line. Video review was inconclusive in determining whether the puck completely crossed the line, therefore the referee's call stood that it was a goal.
"The call on the ice really helped it count," said MacKinnon, who has two goals and an assist in the past three games. "I’ll definitely take it. I thought I got it past him, but I wasn’t sure 100 percent."
Johnson and John Mitchell also had goals in the second. Johnson scored at 7:18. He skated from the right corner into the circle and put a backhander through traffic inside the near post. Mitchell's shot from the blue line found its way through several bodies at 8:43.
“We knew that this game was extremely important, a division opponent coming in here and our last game before a long road trip and the All-Star break coming up," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "We had a chance to hop ahead of these guys in the standings. After the first period, we all felt like this is our chance. We’ve been playing well as of late and we just wanted to kind of have the results to back us up and have something to show for it. When you get the building going like it was, it’s hard to stop.…