Watching the Colorado Avalanche scratch and claw their way to a 4-2 win tonight against the Calgary Flames, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this Avs team just feels different than it did right after it returned from the Four Nations break.

You look in the box score tonight, and you see some familiar names that have been around all season, but the contributions of other guys also stood out on the rare night that Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar went quiet offensively.

It’s obviously easy to look at Parker Kelly’s two-goal night and understand that he had five goals in 65 games this season and two in one game is a weird thing that happens in hockey sometimes, but it’s more than that so let’s talk about it.

Parker Kelly comes up huge for the Avalanche

The obvious star of this show is Kelly, whose two-goal game came inches from being a hat trick when MacKinnon hit him on a 2v1 and his shot just barely ricocheted off of the knob of Flames goalie Dustin Wolf’s stick. Just an inch to either side and we’d be talking about another Avalanche hat trick this season.

Instead, it’s “only” a two-goal night for Kelly, but both goals obviously proved big. His first goal made it 2-0 just as the Flames finally started to wake up and find their footing in the game. You could say it really…extinguished some of Calgary’s momentum. It didn’t come long after Makar failed to score on his second career penalty shot, so watching Kelly just pick a spot and hit it was a nice result given how well Wolf was once again playing (he’s the Flames MVP and should win the Calder Trophy but he won’t). Kelly used his speed to get involved in the play and then buried it from there.

The second goal is more of what I was expecting we’d see from him this season. Go to the net, pick up some loose change, and put it in the bank, baby. The goal came shortly after the Flames had made it 2-1 and were building to a game-tying goal. Kelly smothered that comeback attempt after making it 3-1.

Kelly was probably due for some positive regression because he had been such a low-event player at times this year, but his move back to his more natural wing position has opened him up to the parts of his game he excels at and removes the part where he’s asked to drive play offensively, something he just cannot do.

The wing version of Kelly has been awfully good. And why has he been able to move back to wing?

New Avs making big differences

Jack Drury was brought in as part of the return for Mikko Rantanen and was, obviously, the lesser heralded player compared to Martin Necas, but he’s started to carve out a real role in Denver. He’s been strong in the faceoff circle, an area the Avs badly needed help, but he’s also chipped in some offense here and there and added an assist on Kelly’s first goal tonight. He’s been a good fit as the fourth-line center.

The reason he’s been able to slot into that spot has been the deadline acquisition of Charlie Coyle, who has been the perfect third-line center for the Avalanche so far. He’s winning faceoffs, especially on the penalty kill (Coyle and Drury have both been great there), and Coyle was the center of Colorado’s most consistently effective line tonight, especially at 5v5.

Part of that is getting on a line with Ross Colton, whose swagger and ability to play up in the lineup earlier in the year made it seem like he might be a viable option in the top six of Colorado’s forward alignment. Instead, his offense badly sagged and he struggled to produce as Colorado’s lacking center depth held back everything they were trying to do. Enter Coyle, and Colton has been aces. He had two more assists tonight, which gives him five in the four games since Coyle’s arrival.

Those are the exact kind of offensive returns they were hoping for with the center adds. Brock Nelson had a quiet night, but oddly all of Colorado’s top six forwards were pretty sleepy tonight. You know things are weird when Artturi Lehkonen is downright bad. Val Nichushkin scored an empty-net goal from 160 feet away as an insurance marker, but otherwise it was the depth guys carrying the offensive load.

That is, of course, after defenseman Ryan Lindgren got things started for Colorado. There were, frankly, a lot of question marks with Lindgren’s addition, but I’ve written a bit and talked on the podcast about what he’s bringing to the lineup that is working so well. We saw it again tonight as the Flames created zero high-danger chances against Lindgren in 18:48 of 5v5 ice time.

He was brought in to clean up the area in front of the net and Lindgren has absolutely delivered on that promise. I mean, we also saw his goal to start the game, which was cool. His shot metrics in this one were dominant, yet another new Av doing the job.

He’s not really new relative to the other guys here, but goalie Scott Wedgewood was excellent once again. Following his spectacular shutout of the Chicago Blackhawks, Wedgewood was pressed into action tonight when Mackenzie Blackwood came down with an illness and didn’t go. He met the moment again and was stellar tonight. The second goal is some hard-luck nonsense as a point shot hits a Flames player in the head and floats up and over Wedgewood’s body, dropping into the net behind him. Silly, but since the Avs won, also pretty funny.

In the end, Wedgewood finished with 22 saves on 24 shots on goal for a .917 save percentage.

A whole lot of guys in either new roles or new to the team entirely drove the bus tonight for Colorado. This would have been a recipe for getting beaten up earlier in the year. Now, it’s another win as the Avs moved to 7-0-1 in their last eight games. This is the kind of grit and lineup balance they have been lacking all season. It sure seems like they’re getting it now.

Sunday’s game against Dallas got even bigger

The Dallas Stars come to Denver on Sunday afternoon as Mikko Rantanen makes his controversial return to Colorado. That will obviously be a huge story and I am already prepared for Rantanen and Matt Duchene to have a field day, but Dallas got smoked tonight against the Central Division-leading Winnipeg Jets. Colorado’s win brought the Avs to within three points of the Stars for second place, although Dallas has two games in hand.

The Avs can’t do anything about the games that Dallas hasn’t played yet, but they do control what comes in the head-to-head series. A regulation win on Sunday would bring Colorado within one point of the Stars in the standings and put major heat on Dallas to stave them off for home ice to begin the postseason. Given the Stars and Avs are very likely on a collision course for a Round 1 matchup, the Avs need to take advantage of the slightest opening to try to force their way past Dallas.

Odds are still against the Avs even if they win on Sunday, but a win on Sunday and the chase is on for real.