Another Avalanche comeback brings clarity to Colorado’s Stanley Cup path

The Colorado Avalanche secured at least the third seed in the Central Division with a 3-2 shootout victory over the Vegas Golden Knights. It wasn’t a particularly intense game as both teams were missing a significant chunk of their normal lineups but both mathematically still had something to play for. They kind of did.

This wasn’t a game you were going to confuse with one with a playoff atmosphere despite featuring two teams who are among the favorites to win the Stanley Cup when the postseason opens up next weekend.

Vegas started it off with the first two goals of the game with one each in the first and second period, before Avalanche goaltender Scott Wedgewood locked it down from there. The Avs eventually crept back into the game before barely scoring a goal that took a video review to clarify whether it crossed the goal line or not and then they poured it on from there.

Jimmy Vesey got the game-tying goal as a member of a dominant third line. Overtime featured some chances for each team, including an abbreviated 4v3 power play for Vegas, but this was decided in the shootout. The first five shooters (total) failed to score and the sixth, Charlie Coyle, finally got on the board and gave the Avalanche the victory.

Let’s talk a little about the win and a little about what it means moving forward.

The Avalanche are officially locked into the Central Division bracket

There was a remote possibility of the blistering hot St. Louis Blues continuing their torrid pace and catching the Avalanche, pushing Colorado into the Pacific Division bracket as the top wild card seed and most likely into a Round 1 matchup with tonight’s opponent, Vegas.

When the game crossed into overtime, Vegas locked up home ice in Round 1 only needs one more point to win the Pacific Division. The overtime point gave the Avs the statistical assurance that the Blues could not catch them, meaning the Avalanche can only face Winnipeg or Dallas in Round 1.

The victory means the Avalanche still maintain the highly unlikely possibility of catching the Stars for the second seed and home-ice advantage in Round 1. Thanks to Dallas making history and allowing three goals in the final minute and then losing to Vancouver tonight, it kept the slimmest of cracks in the door for the Avs to steal the second seed.

In order for that to happen, the Avalanche would have to win their three remaining games in regulation while Dallas would have to lose their final four games in regulation, too, to give both teams 106 points and the Avs would clear the Stars in the first tiebreaker, which is regulation wins.

With that being highly unlikely, the Avs are staring down the barrel of either the Stars or Jets in Round 1. The Stars trail the Jets by four points and each team has four games left, but they have a head-to-head game this Thursday that looms large in deciding this race. A win by the Jets and the race is likely over, while a win by the Stars would pull them within two points with three games remaining for each team. That’s a real race.

The difference for the Avalanche could be significant. Yes, the Avs blew the doors off Winnipeg last season in their postseason matchup and then were overmatched against Dallas in Round 2, but the situations are quite a bit different this time around. For my money, this Winnipeg team is better as a group, though it’s a lot of the same players as last season and they have worse center depth.

Each team is fighting through a key injury right now. For Winnipeg, first-line wing Gabe Vilardi is hurting and could be compromised if he returns for their Round 1 series. They do not have strong wing depth to replace Vilardi, so that’s a key loss. In Dallas, the Stars remain without star defenseman Miro Heiskanen, who could miss Round 1 entirely. While their winning ways have continued, they have been increasingly reliant on exceptional goaltending as their shoddy defense has been taxed without Heiskanen there to provide cover for the poorly constructed right side of the defense.

The Avs have injury issues of their own, of course, as they were missing Martin Necas, Jonathan Drouin, Sam Girard, Josh Manson, and Ross Colton from the lineup tonight, but none of those injuries carries the impact of losing Heiskanen. The Avs are also hoping to get all those players back this week at some point, as well as the increased possibility that Gabe Landeskog will make his long-awaited return during Round 1.

At the moment, the injury luck side of things could favor the Avs, especially if they draw the Stars in Round 1. The desperation Dallas has played with in recent weeks makes me think the Stars know they don’t want to mess with the Avs without their star defenseman (not a pun, but also a pun), but that’s easy for me to say as a person who believes the Avs have a much better overall squad than they did last season in the Dallas-Colorado series.

Depth got it going again for the Avs

Val Nichushkin barely scored a power-play goal to get the Avs on the board to start the scoring, but it was really the remade third and fourth lines of the Avs that got them skating downhill and dominating the game. Here’s the game flow in shot attempts.

The Avs were cruising along with basically the advantage they built up in the first few shifts of the game when they came out flying, but it was even after that. The Nichushkin goal was good, but a shift after that they started to beat Vegas all over the ice.

A lot of that success began with the reimagined line around Charlie Coyle, who skated with Miles Wood and Jimmy Vesey. Two players who are likely on the outside looking in when the postseason opens, Wood and Vesey stepped into the opportunity and produced. Wood was one of the few Avs who had a decent game in St. Louis over the weekend and he followed it up by putting his imprint on tonight’s game with a strong outing.

Wood’s speed and physicality played well against a battered Vegas lineup and his play has taken a noticeable uptick in his last few games. The Avs will certainly need the depth during the postseason that an in-form Wood provides. Vesey was the surprise goal-scorer tonight as he jumped onto the ice, headed right to the net, and found a rebound.

The Avs came so close to scoring again to take a 3-2 lead heading into the third period, but couldn’t quite cash in. The depth getting their game going seemed to kickstart Colorado’s top guys to get into gear, too, especially Cale Makar. The top guys for the Avs turned up the heat before the buzzer bailed Vegas out.

It was great that Nathan MacKinnon and Co. started to skate downhill, but that confidence started with the Coyle line. A special shoutout to the Parker Kelly-Jack Drury-Chris Wagner line, too, because their physicality and speed helped start to hem Vegas into their own zone and build toward Coyle’s line finding success.

In total, those two lines outshot Vegas 10-2 combined in 12:49 of 5v5 ice time. That’s damn good from your bottom two lines.

Is Scott Wedgewood forcing another goalie conversation?

So I’m always pretty hesitant to engage these conversations, but to the eye, it sure looks like Scott Wedgewood has outplayed Mackenzie Blackwood the last few weeks. There’s a major caveat here that Wedgewood has consistently gotten the weaker opponents and Wedgewood’s “worst” recent game was his outing against Dallas on March 16, where he allowed three goals on 22 shots, including two goals about 20 seconds apart that turned a 3-1 lead into a 3-3 tie that Makar won in overtime.

From there, Wedgewood’s workload has been pretty easy. Ottawa is good, but he faced only 16 shots on goal, and then he got Calgary, Chicago, and tonight’s seriously compromised version of Vegas (they were missing Jack Eichel, Nic Hague, Tomas Hertl, and Alex Pietrangelo). It’s not the hardest slate of games.

Meanwhile, Blackwood got both losses to St. Louis, a dominant win over Columbus where he wasn’t very good, and strong nights against Los Angeles and Detroit. Blackwood’s opponents have been tougher so it’s not a huge surprise that he hasn’t played as well at times, but even then the numbers aren’t bad.

In Blackwood’s last 12 starts, he has a .906 save percentage but has a save percentage below .900 in just three of them (two of those starts he had exactly a .900). He’s allowed more than two goals in five of those 12 starts, so it’s more than some of his poor nights have been really poor. His most recent game against the Blues was one of his worst as an Av, so the recency bias is strong in this conversation.

Still, there’s no denying that Wedgewood has been really strong. He is 7-0-1 in his last eight starts and his only game below a .900 was the one against the Stars.

He’s given the Avs an emotional lift but he’s also been surprisingly excellent in goal. If you’re getting major Pavel Francouz vibes right now, you are not alone, especially with Wedgewood’s strong showing in shootouts over the last week (five stops on six shooters).