Confident but not overly so is how I'd describe the Avalanche mindset heading into Sunday's game in Chicago after their 5-3 win against Nashville on Friday night.
The Avalanche (21-18-3) moved into the second wild card spot in the Western Conference on Saturday when the Predators (19-16-7) lost 4-0 at Arizona, now that they've played the same number of games. Colorado and Nashville each has 45 points, but the Avalanche have a four-game lead in regulation and overtime wins (21-17), the first tiebreaker.
#Avs Haven't seen this in a while. Forty games left to pick up more ground. #Avalanche pic.twitter.com/vkQoQwzGoy
— Rick Sadowski (@RickS7) January 10, 2016"Things are closing in," Predators forward Filip Forsberg told The Tennessean. "We've (reached) the half-season mark, and it's going to be a race all the way down. (The Avalanche) have been playing really good, and we obviously haven't been playing as good as we wanted in the first half. It's all about really trying to get things together."
Back on Nov. 30, the Avalanche were 9-14-1, good for 19 points. The Predators were 13-7-4 through 24 games, good for 30 points. So Colorado has gained 11 points since then by going 12-4-2 (26 points) while Nashville has gone 6-9-3 (15 points).
"To climb back to where we are, the guys have done a good job, but nobody's really walking around the room satisfied or anything like that," Blake Comeau said. "Everyone's excited about the direction that we're going, but we know that we have a long ways to go. Everyone in the room knows how important these points are, especially in our (Central Division). We've done a good job (in it)."
Guess so. The Avalanche have a 9-2-1 record against division opponents heading into Sunday's game against the Blackhawks at the United Center.
The Avalanche went 3-1-1 on the five game homestand with consecutive wins this week against Los Angeles, St. Louis and Nashville, and have improved to 9-9-3 at home. They're 9-2-2 in the past 13 games.
They won the past two games without defenseman Erik Johnson, who "tweaked" a knee in the win against the Kings. He's been spotted walking around without any apparent discomfort but there's a difference between that and skating, which he has yet to do.
"To think a month ago we were (11) points behind these guys says a lot about our club, what we've been able to do and how hard we've worked," Tyson Barrie said. "It's nice to see results. There's a lot of season left, but I think we're building towards something and we're getting better every night."
*****
How about some kudos for the Cody McLeod-John Mitchell-Jack Skille line. The trio combined for two goals, one assist, seven shots and a plus-6 rating against the Predators. They were rewarded with more ice time (a combined 38 minutes) than the Andreas Martinsen-Mikhail Grigorenko-Jarome Iginla line (about 30 minutes).
GM Joe Sakic should attempt to sign Skille to an extension as soon as possible. He has speed and plays with grit and energy. Remember, he came to camp on a tryout basis.
Martinsen and Grigorenko played less than 10 minutes each and Iginla, who scored a power-play goal (tying Jari Kurri for 18th all time with his 601st goal) played 12:06 but just 7:40 at even strength.
And while Ryan O'Reilly is putting up nice numbers in Buffalo, the Avalanche never would have sent a sixth-round pick to Boston for Carl Soderberg's rights before signing him to a five-year, $23.75 million contract if O'Reilly had wanted to stay in Colorado.
Soderberg had two more assists Friday while playing 22:27, more than any other Avalanche forward. The 6-foot-3 center is quietly putting together a career year with 28 points (seven goals, 21 assists) in 42 games while anchoring a line with Gabriel Landeskog and Comeau. He has five goals and 14 points in the past 23 games.
"He's playing playoff hockey," coach Patrick Roy said of Soderberg. "He's tough to play against, he protects the puck well, makes good decisions with the puck, doesn't look for fancy stuff. That's the way you win in playoffs."
The Avalanche still have to get there, but at least things are a lot more promising now than they were a little over a month ago.