The Avalanche has been playing plenty of important games in recent weeks, but Saturday's meeting with the first-place St. Louis Blues at the sold-out Pepsi Center will be the most important one to date.
"This is a big one," center Matt Duchene said Friday after players worked out off the ice and attended team meetings. "We've had this one marked on our calendar for a while."
The Avalanche sits third in the jam-packed Central Division, three points behind the Blues and one behind the second-place Chicago Blackhawks with five weeks remaining in the regular season.
"Who would have thought that the Avalanche would be in this position?" coach Patrick Roy said. "It's a great situation to be in. When we started the season we had an objective to surprise the world of hockey. That's one of the first things I remember saying. We also wanted to remain even keel all season long, take it one day at a time.
"We haven't changed. We're going to continue to go in that direction. It is a good test for us, it's a great situation to be in. By winning this game we have a chance to be even closer to them. Our guys are very excited and we need to remain focused on what we need to do.
"We're playing against one of the best teams in the league and it's a great situation to be in when you're that close to them. That means you have been doing something really good as well."
The Avalanche didn't fare well in the first two games against the Blues this season, losing 7-3 in St. Louis on Nov. 14 and 4-1 at home on Nov. 27. The teams will meet one more time, April 5 in St. Louis, after Saturday.
Not only that, the Blues are even stronger in goal now following the acquisition of Ryan Miller from Buffalo. Miller has won all three of his starts since the trade while stopping 58 of 63 shots.
But the Avalanche will take a four-game winning streak into the game, is coming off road wins against Chicago and Detroit, and Roy and his players believe this a much better team than the one that played the Blues 3 1-2 months ago.
"Despite the fact that we didn't play very well against the Blues this year, in my opinion we're a different team than the last two times we played them," Roy said. "We're playing better defensively and we made some adjustments in our system. I think it's good timing for us to see where we are against these guys. They made a couple trades, they have a new goalie. I think it's going to be interesting to see what we can do better. We'll see where we are."
Goalie Semyon Varlamov will start against the Blues for the second time this season. He stopped 31 of 34 shots in the 4-1 loss and was tagged with the defeat (unfairly) in St. Louis when he allowed two goals on six shots in 13 minutes in relief of Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
The Avalanche has outscored teams 17-7 in the four-game streak and rookie Nathan MacKinnon has collected at least one point in 13 consecutive games, breaking the NHL record for an 18-year-old set by Wayne Gretzky in the 1979-80 season. MacKinnon has five goals and 13 assists in the streak.
"It's almost a playoff game in the middle of the backstretch here," said Duchene, who scored his 20th goal Thursday in the Avalanche's 3-2 overtime win against the Red Wings and leads the team in scoring with 58 points in 60 games. "I think it's a great measuring stick for us. We know we match up well against Chicago; we've proved that. St. Louis is one we've struggled with a little bit this year and in the past.
"We're right there. If we continue this run we're on, if we get even hotter or stay as hot as we are, we could even potentially win the conference. We're within striking distance and we all know that and we're excited by that. We're going to push as hard as we possibly can, whether it's possible or not.
"It's special. It's what we've known we've had in here for a long time and it's been frustrating not being able to get it out and play this way as a group. This is our style of hockey that we play. Even when we're not at our best we're still finding ways to win because we're staying so positive, and that's something that wasn't here before. It's so nice to have that, and you're really seeing the potential of this team. Hopefully this is just the beginning.
"All of us are starting to realize how special this is. We've had good stretches here in the past four years and it's never added up to anything. So I think all of us have really stayed in the moment and enjoyed those stretches but stayed in the moment, stayed humble and kept hungry. Now we're starting to see it add up to something and it's exciting."
The Blues are big and strong, have allowed just 142 goals -- only Los Angeles and Boston have permitted fewer -- and have scored 206 goals, 11 more than the Avalanche in one fewer game.
"We're going to be in the playoffs this year, barring some crazy happening," Duchene said. "The way we're playing right now, the confidence we're showing, we're better than we were the last time we played these guys. They're a great team. They match up great against us.
"I always look at the box scores and see the shots on net and it's crazy. Last night it was 22-21 against Nashville. That could be a period total for us against another team. They're very good at playing defense, they play as a five-man unit, they play hard, they're big, they're strong. We're built differently than them, and the team that plays their game to the best of their ability is going to win this game."
Said captain Gabriel Landeskog: "We've played well lately and that's something we're going to keep building off. We know what they're going to bring and we know what kind of team they're like. They added some pieces at the deadline. We're looking forward to it. We want to keep this thing rolling. Why not break the streak against them right now?"