The next two weeks will be a tough stretch for the Avalanche, starting with Tuesday night's game in Nashville and Friday's rematch at the Pepsi Center.
Here are the game notes for Tuesday.
After facing the Central Division-leading Predators (30-10-5) twice, the Avalanche will travel to Dallas, meet Detroit at home, and play a back-to-back set in Minnesota and Winnipeg.
They'll do it without Erik Johnson, their best defenseman, who will miss between three and eight weeks to recover from arthroscopic knee surgery.
Zach Redmond, who has four goals and six assists in 26 games, will take Johnson's spot alongside Jan Hejda. He should get some power-play time as well.
The loss of Johnson also puts more of an onus on Tyson Barrie. He's the team's top scoring defenseman with 28 points (four goals, 24 assists), and he's going to have to help put some life into a power play that's in a 3-for-32 slump and ranks 28th in the 30-team league.
Nashville has won seven consecutive home games and is 18-2-1 there for the season. Goalie Pekka Rinne is out with a sprained knee, so Carter Hutton gets the start.
Calder Trophy candidate Filip Forsberg has 15 goals and 25 assists, reclamation project Mike Ribeiro 10 goals and 29 assists, and four others have at least 10 goals, including perennial Norris Trophy candidate Shea Weber. Seth Jones has three goals, 11 assists and is plus 12.
The Avalanche (20-18-10) are three points out of the second wild-card position in the Western Conference held by Calgary, which has played one fewer game and has a big lead (22-14) in non-shootout wins. Los Angeles is two points ahead of the Avalanche, also has played one fewer game and is ahead 19-14 in non-shootout wins.
They entered the All-Star break 11-5-4 since Dec. 11 and 7-3-2 in 12 games, the kind of runs that will be necessary to continue for any chance of gaining a playoff spot.
"I think we're playing a lot more consistent and with more confidence," Jarome Iginla said. "I still think there's room to grow and I believe it will grow. Guys are starting to feel better individually and also as a team. We're going to need that and we're going to have to go on a good run here to continue that and to keep getting better. It does feel like it's going a lot better after a hard start with the group."
After his slow start, Iginla has picked up his play. He has seven goals and three assists in the past 15 games, has taken over the team lead with 14 goals and trails linemate Alex Tanguay by one point (32-31) for the team scoring lead.
Matt Duchene also is playing better with a two-game goal-scoring streak, and with four goals and four assists in 10 games. Ryan O'Reilly, whose name will continue to surface in trade rumors, has five goals and six assists in the past 20 games. He leads the NHL with 60 takeaways.
Nathan MacKinnon is showing signs of life with three goals and two assists in eight games. Gabriel Landeskog has two goals and three assists in nine games.
"We're playing more consistent, learning how to win different ways," Duchene said. "We're a more mature team than we were last year. Maybe we're not as offensively explosive as we were, but right now it doesn't matter because we're winning games."
Here's the Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Alex Tanguay - Matt Duchene - Jarome Iginla Gabriel Landeskog - Ryan O'Reilly - Nathan MacKinnon Cody McLeod - John Mitchell - Dennis Everberg Max Talbot - Marc-Andre Cliche - Daniel Briere
DEFENSE Jan Hejda - Zach Redmond Nate Guenin - Tyson Barrie Nick Holden - Brad Stuart
GOALIES Semyon Varlamov Reto Berra