The Avalanche matched a franchise record with 28 home wins last season, and they are dominating again at the Pepsi Center.

It’s only been two games but knocking off a Central Division rival like Minnesota is always significant, and they followed with a 5-2 win Saturday against Philadelphia, which has plenty of offensive weapons.

Now we get to see how these guys fare on the road. Goalie Philipp Grubauer will make his Avalanche debut Tuesday in Columbus after which Semyon Varlamov takes his 2-0 record, 1.50 goals-against average and .948 save percentage into Buffalo.

“To start out 2-0 is exactly what we wanted to do at home,” coach Jared Bednar said. “We’ve got a bunch of road games coming up and it’s going to be a challenge. It’s a new challenge for this group.

“We have to be better on the road this year than we were last year. Hopefully we can take a little bit out of what we did in these two opening games and build on it.”

The Avalanche went 15-19-7 on the road last year; only Arizona (13-20-8) had fewer road wins in the Western Conference.

Winning more road games was one of the five keys for success in my NHL.com season preview.

They’re showing promise in a couple of other categories: getting secondary scoring to complement the top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen, and displaying a deeper defense group.

MacKinnon scored the winning goal against the Wild and Landeskog had the honors against the Flyers, and they’ve gotten goals from each of the other three lines.

Colin Wilson, who had six goals in 56 games last season (he missed 26 with various injuries) scored twice Saturday. J.T. Compher has a goal in each game (one was an empty-netter), Carl Soderberg has a goal and two assists, an Alexander Kerfoot has three assists.

They haven’t gotten a goal from a defenseman yet, but the group has contributed five assists. Erik Johnson matched a career high with three against the Flyers.

"I got healthy in the offseason, did a lot of work on the ice as well just to get my confidence back, and it feels good to be making plays out there and be contributing offensively right now," Wilson said. "I think it's been two good games. I am in a good position right now on my line, and I feel substantially better than I did at this point last year."

Tyson Jost, who is centering Kerfoot and Wilson, has yet to get on the board, but he’s playing well defensively and showing some grit to go along with his speed. He’s won 50 percent of his faceoffs, which is saying a lot for this team.

Bednar last week said 20-year-old Samuel Girard has the “potential to be a superstar” and the defenseman had another strong game Saturday. He played 22:37, more than any other Avalanche D, fed Wilson for his first goal, blocked three shots and was plus-3.

Ian Cole has been solid, especially while killing penalties. Ditto Patrik Nemeth, who sustained an upper-body injury against the Wild and didn’t play against the Flyers.

His replacement, Mark Barberio, was involved in that bizarre second-period play when he crashed into Varlamov, who left the crease to play a puck that came off the end boards. Flyers rookie Mikhail Vorobyev swept the loose puck into the empty net for his first NHL goal, tying the game 2-2.

Varlamov blamed himself for not communicating better, as did Bednar.

“It was probably a mistake by Varly there, it’s icing,” he said. “If he just lets it come out, ‘Barbs’ was getting ready to cross the top of the circle. (Varlamov) might have had a read that he didn’t like where it was bouncing. It should have been called icing, ‘Barbs’ is going after the puck and then he runs into him and it’s just sort of a compilation of mistakes. What I liked about it is how Varly rebounded after that. I thought he was outstanding.”

Said Barberio: “Bang, bang, I took out Varly, gave them probably the easiest goal of the season. We got the win and that’s all that matters. I wasn’t feeling too good when I got back to the bench, you feel like you let the team down and give up an easy goal like that. Guys were picking me up right away.”



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