St. Paul – As the Avalanche plays better, the math gets tougher.
Including today’s matinee against the Minnesota Wild at the Xcel Energy Center, Colorado has 14 games remaining in the regular season. A five-game winning streak hasn’t jumped the Avalanche back into a playoff position – or close to it.
Coach Joel Quenneville said the Avs “still need to get some help because we certainly haven’t gotten any lately. … I think we still have to win almost every game, and we’re going to need some help along the way.”
The Avs have 73 points and are in ninth place in the Western Conference. Four teams are in a pack at the fifth through eighth spots. Dallas, San Jose and Minnesota have 83 points, and Calgary has 82 after losing 3-2 in overtime Saturday night at home against Tampa Bay.
There are head-to-head games among those teams in which somebody has to get points. Calgary and Minnesota play three more times, for example, and it probably would improve the Avs’ chances if either the Flames or the Wild win all three in regulation and none is a dreaded three-point game – in which the winner gets two points and the overtime or shootout loser gets one.
The scenario that gives the Avalanche the best shot, in fact, would be that while the Avs remain hot, one – and probably only one – of those other four teams is inept the remainder of the season.
Because the Avalanche plays Calgary three more times, including Tuesday in Denver and in the rescheduled regular-season finale April 8, also at the Pepsi Center, the most straightforward way for Colorado to get back into a playoff spot would be sweep the Flames and have it be part of a Calgary collapse. Under that scenario, the best thing for Colorado would be if Minnesota also wins all three against the Flames.
But none of it matters if the Avs don’t stay on this roll, which began with a home victory over Columbus and continued through road wins against Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Buffalo.
“We haven’t had this kind of momentum going for us all year long,” Quenneville said. “It’s something we’ve been striving to get to and now that we’re here, we feel good about ourselves. We’re playing some of our best hockey and we’re getting contributions from a number of guys.
“At this point, no matter who the opponent is, we have to get points and win games. We do get to play some of the teams we’re chasing, so hopefully that can help us.”
Vancouver, which at 87 points sits in the conference’s No. 3 spot because it has the Northwest Division lead, in theory could hit a horrendous skid and drop precipitously in the conference, but here is the way the remaining schedules look for the teams currently in the fifth through eighth spots. Again, Colorado would have to pass one of these teams to make the playoffs.
Dallas (83 points) has 15 games remaining, eight at home.
San Jose (83) has 14 games remaining, eight at home.
Minnesota (83) has 13 games remaining, nine at home.
Calgary (82) has 14 games remaining, but only seven at home. The Flames are 5-1-2 in their past eight games.
Colorado (73) has 14 games left, six at home.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
