I was legitimately excited for tonight’s game.

As many of you know, my wife is a Winnipeg native and Jets fan, giving me the perfect, uh, excuse to be in Winnipeg when the Jets and Colorado Avalanche tangle. That means I was here in November when the Avs visited and subsequently got blown out 5-0 in what was the beginning of that portion of the season where the Avs were icing extremely heavy AHL lineups.

I stayed in Winnipeg after the game and listened to their media talk about how the Jets had trounced the champs and what a meaningful win it was for a team that was one of the NHL’s top disappointments last year when they missed the postseason and, frankly, weren’t all that competitive down the stretch when the games mattered the most.

Fast forward to this year when the Jets made a coaching change from Paul Maurice to Rick Bowness and stripped Blake Wheeler of the captaincy, breathing new life into a locker room that has long had its issues. They started off the season hot. They were one of the surprises early this year.

Then came that November matchup, the Jets dominated, and the city spent 48 hours over the moon about it. I remarked that it was too early in the season to be reacting quite like that to a win over a depleted Avalanche roster. Still, the conversation focused on what a litmus test that game was for Winnipeg. It was interesting to watch the Jets continue to ascend while the Avs struggled through their injury-plagued winter.

Once the calendar flipped to 2023, however, things started to change. Colorado started winning (eventually) and the Jets started struggling. Connor Hellebuyck has been back to the elite level of play we’ve come to expect from him on a regular basis and the Jets were scoring enough goals to mask their poor defensive play.

As the teams wound through the schedule, this matchup always loomed. Coming into it, Colorado was four points back with three games in hand. This was a chance to make up ground head-to-head in a classic four-point game.

A few days ago, Bowness remarked that tonight’s game was the biggest of Winnipeg’s season. There was a buzz in the city about the matchup, which had been billed as “Makar vs Morrissey” in the lead-up as Josh Morrissey’s breakout season led to his new nickname, Josh “Norrisey” because of his presumed candidacy for the Norris Trophy at season’s end.

Makar’s ongoing concussion issues wiped that storyline away, but the game had to go on all the same. Once again, Winnipeg would get a compromised version of the Avalanche, although not nearly as bad as the last time Colorado was in town.

I was excited to see how each team would respond to a game that had a little extra juice to it. Colorado had the Stanley Cup Final rematch games against Tampa Bay recently, but beyond the two standings points, those games just weren’t that important in the overall big picture.

This game, however, did matter.

19 seconds after the puck dropped, Colorado led 1-0 on a perfect breakout that freed Nathan MacKinnon for a breakaway and he beat Hellebuyck cleanly.

Colorado’s best player set the tone. If this was a playoff atmosphere, he was treating it like a playoff game. For one of the most prolific producers in NHL playoff history through his first 90 postseason games, MacKinnon taking it up another level meant trouble for the Jets.

11 minutes into the first period, MacKinnon had two points, the Avs led 4-1, and the hype balloon surrounding this game had been popped.

We saw the Avalanche face this kind of pressure nine days ago when they walked into Minnesota on the second night of a back-to-back and stole two points in regulation from the Wild. The heart the Avalanche showed that night showed up once again tonight, only with more well-rested legs.

Winnipeg, however, hadn’t really felt the same kind of pressure much this year. Staring down the barrel of the defending champs who happen to be nipping at your heels in the standings? That’s the kind of spot that allows us to get to know the real Jets.

Colorado’s speed and attacking tenacity completely overwhelmed the Jets, who played the proverbial deer-in-the-headlights as the Avalanche ran them over. The moment was clearly too big and everyone got a stark reminder of why the champs are, well, the champs, even though they are still not entirely healthy.

If you’re any team out west, how is tonight’s evisceration of the Jets not at least a little terrifying? They beat the Wild in a very tough situation last week, erased 3-0, 4-2, and 5-3 deficits against the Oilers to win in overtime, and then shelled the Jets. That’s three likely playoff teams out west slain in a week’s time. The Avs are making up ground because they’re doing it head-to-head.

As Jets fans and media did back in November, I don’t want to make too much of a single game. It was Game 56 of the schedule. The Avs didn’t make the postseason with tonight’s win. There’s a ton of work left to do, but that doesn’t make tonight’s win meaningless.

In situations where stakes are raised, as was the case tonight, you get a good look at the core of teams, a glimpse of their competitive DNA. Colorado showed that championship DNA they spent years developing and last spring perfecting. Winnipeg is telling themselves it’s only one game and that’s why the playoffs are best-of-seven.

Whatever they need to tell themselves after tonight is their business. Colorado has now won 12 of their last 16 games, once again making their business the only kind that matters in this industry: winning.

It was a fun 50-ish games for the rest of the Western Conference to dream big, but tonight was as much a warning as a reminder:

The road to the Stanley Cup Final out west still runs through Denver.