Daniel Briere will return to the lineup on Thursday when the Avalanche play Winnipeg at the Pepsi Center.
Briere, who has missed eight games with a foot injury, will replace Dennis Everberg, who sustained a shoulder injury Tuesday against Nashville and probably will need surgery.
Here are the game notes.
Briere, 37, will skate on the fourth line with Jordan Caron and Freddie Hamilton. Rookie Joey Hishon, who scored his first NHL goal Tuesday, will be on the third line with Cody McLeod and Marc-Andre Cliche.
"He looked good," coach Patrick Roy said of Briere. "I spoke to him on the ice. He said he was good enough to play."
Briere was injured blocking a shot in a March 23 game against Calgary. He has eight goals and four assists in 55 games. Briere is in the final year of his contract and won't be re-signed.
"The reason why we got him was because of his leadership," Roy said of Briere, who has 307 career goals and was acquired June 30 from Montreal in exchange for PA Parenteau and a 2015 fifth-round draft pick. "I think he did just that for us. He was a great teammate and I'm sure our guys have learned a lot from him, and that was the purpose of the trade."
Everberg missed eight games earlier in the season with a shoulder injury. If he undergoes surgery, Roy said he would need "probably six months" to recover. He has three goals and nine assists in 55 games.
Reto Berra will start in goal.
The Jets (42-26-12) can earn the second wild card playoff spot in the West with a win in any fashion against the Avalanche (37-31-12). They also would clinch with a point against Colorado if Los Angeles loses to Calgary. The Jets can also lose and get in if the Kings lose in regulation.
The Jets are attempting to clinch the second playoff position in franchise history and first since the Atlanta Thrashers won the Southeast Division title in 2006-07. The Thrashers moved to Winnipeg before the 2011-12 season.
Winnipeg fans last attended a home playoff game in 1996 when the original Jets lost to Detroit. The franchise moved to Phoenix that summer.
"We'd certainly like to give them credit for their season, "Roy said. "They are where they are because they played hard and they deserved it. But I'm not looking at it to play the spoiler role. I just want to make sure that we focus on things we want to be better at. We want to play for our fans, and that's what we're focused on."
The Jets are excited about the prospect, but you wouldn't know it by their demeanor at the morning skate.
"You have to keep it even keel, go with your same routine and kind of treat it as any other game," center Mark Scheifele said. "I think that's going to be our focus and every guy will bring it all tonight. It definitely is (exciting). It's intense, but it's exciting, each and every game has such a huge pull. We can't focus on the big picture, we have to focus on what we can do as a team to win a game.
"It would obviously be unbelievable," Scheifele said. "It's in the back of your mind, but first and foremost it's about tonight and not about the future. You want to focus on what you can do tonight to help the team win. If that happened, it would be pretty unbelievable."
Winnipeg's Dustin Byfuglien will serve the final game of his four-game suspension for cross-checking the Rangers' J.T. Miller in a March 31 game.
"It's tough to sit there and watch," he said. "(Clinching a playoff berth) would be huge for us."
Here's the Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog - Ryan O'Reilly - Alex Tanguay John Mitchell - Matt Duchene - Jarome Iginla Cody McLeod - Marc-Andre Cliche - Joey Hishon Jordan Caron - Freddie Hamilton - Daniel Briere
DEFENSE Jan Hejda - Zach Redmond lNate Guenin - Tyson Barrie Nick Holden - Brad Stuart
GOALIES Reto Berra Semyon Varlamov