First off, Merry Christmas to all. Have a safe, fun and relaxing holiday.
The Avalanche enters the Christmas break in pretty good shape -- a lot better than most of us expected -- in third place in the Central Division with a 23-10-3 record and 49 points in 36 games. This is a fun and entertaining team to watch.
The top three teams in each division are guaranteed playoff spots, and the Avalanche is four points in front of Minnesota, which has played three more games, and seven ahead of Dallas, which has played the same number of games.
Also, the Avalanche has 21 regulation and overtime wins, the first tiebreaker. Minnesota and Dallas each have 15, so it's a big advantage at this point.
There are too many areas to count where the Avalanche has improved from a year ago, but the ability to win games against division and conference opponents is significant. The Avalanche is 9-4-1 against division teams and 15-7-3 against teams in the Western Conference.
No complaints about the 11-5-2 record on the road, but the Avalanche has to do a better job at the Pepsi Center, where the 12-5-1 record is okay but hardly dominant. After Friday night's game in Chicago, the Avalanche will play seven consecutive home games and has a chance to build an even bigger lead against the Wild and Stars.
Has there been a more drastic change from previous seasons than in attitude? I don't think so, and you can credit coach Patrick Roy for that. Players are definitely having more fun with Roy in charge; it's more of a college-type atmosphere, where the coaches and players really seem to care about one another.
Since the start of the year, including training camp, the coaches and players have gathered at center ice after practices to yell "Team" in unison, something I've never seen in all my years covering the NHL. It may be corny, but I really think it's meaningful.
The goaltending is vastly better, and plenty of credit goes to goalie coach Francois Allaire for the work he's done with Semyon Varlamov and Jean-Sebastien Giguere. Their combined 2.32 goals-against average is ninth best in the league, and their .926 save percentage is fourth best.
Matt Duchene is having an exceptional year with a team-leading 34 points (16 goals, 18 assists) in 33 games, a superstar in the making on a team loaded with young, gifted forwards. That includes Nathan MacKinnon, who won't turn 19 until September. He's tied for third among NHL rookies with 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) despite playing on a number of lines and, most recently, as a right wing rather than at his natural center position.
Ryan O'Reilly -- can the Avalanche afford to trade this guy? -- Gabriel Landeskog and Paul Stastny also are playing well, as is jack-of-all-trades forward John Mitchell. The Avalanche could use more than it has been getting from PA Parenteau and Jamie McGinn.
It would be a huge bonus if Alex Tanguay eventually returns from the knee and hip ailments that have forced him to miss 23 games since he was injured Nov. 2 against Montreal. The Avalanche has gone 11-9-3 without him, and his presence gives Roy more options with line combinations.
The special teams have to be better. The power play is finally showing some signs of life but is ranked 19th in the NHL (16.5 percent success rate), and the penalty killing has fallen to 22nd (80.4 percent). The Avalanche has scored 18 power-play goals and two shorthanded goals, and allowed 22 power-play goals and one shorthanded goal. That's a combined minus-three for goals on special teams.
Jan Hejda and Erik Johnson, two of the most improved players in the league, are the mainstays of a defense corps that includes only one former Avalanche draft pick (Tyson Barrie), 35-year-old Cory Sarich, and three players -- Andre Benoit, Nate Guenin and Nick Holden -- who before this season had a combined 80 games of NHL experience.
Led by Johnson, who has six goals and nine assists, the defense has a combined 16 goals and 50 assists. The Avalanche still gives up too many quality scoring chances, but, all things considered, the group has held up pretty well and will get a boost when Ryan Wilson returns.
Is this a Stanley Cup contending team? Not yet, but it should be a playoff team capable of inflicting some damage once the postseason begins. Can't ask for much more than that following the disaster of a year ago. Forty-six regular-season games remain on the schedule, plenty of time for things to fall apart as they have in the recent past, but I just don't see that happening with Roy running the show. He's really been a difference maker.