It's now or never for Semyon Varlamov and the Avs

Hey, remember us. Yoohoo? Yes, the Avalanche are going to play a hockey game tonight, at the Pepsi Center against the Vancouver Canucks.

When we last had hockey to write about, approximately in the Eisenhower Administration, or so it has seemed, Philipp Grubauer let slip a chance to grab the top spot in the goalie rotation. So, when the Avs skate onto the ice tonight, Semyon Varlamov will be back between the pipes.

The Avs enter this one still in the second wild card spot in the Western Conference. The team with the same number of points (52) in the standings is Vancouver. So, a win tonight for the Canucks, and they would become the new second wild card holder and the Avs would be among the dregs, outside the velvet rope of eight playoff teams.

This is the start of Varly’s last chance, probably, to prove he can still be a quality goaltender with the Avalanche. No matter what happens, he’ll likely find work somewhere next season. But this is his chance to still give the Avs pause to consider him, when his contract is up. In the bigger picture, though, this is probably one of Varly’s last chances to prove to anyone and everyone that he isn’t on the descent.

He has to be one of the Avs’ best players again, period. The Avs have just lost too many games of late because of the goaltending, and it’s dropped them to where they are in the standings.

There are 32 games to go on the regular season. The Avs will have 18 of them at home, 14 on the road. It’s a 32-game sprint for a playoff spot, with six teams (yes, that even includes Chicago) within five points of them. They are going to have to win games consistently. A .500 record and the Avs are probably not going to make it. Certainly, less than .500 and they won’t make it.

There are no excuses. The roster is mostly healthy (although Tyson Jost is out indefinitely right now after taking a big hit in a game with the Eagles last week, so forget about him being inserted into the Avs lineup like he probably would have been for this sprint). They have the favorable home schedule, they’ve got the top line intact, they’ve got Erik Johnson back. And they’ve got two healthy goalies that the Avs are paying more than $9 million combined to stop the puck.

We’ll start to see what this team is really made of, starting tonight. A reminder: the game is a late start, 8 p.m., for Hockey Night in Canada.