Well, Colorado is making it interesting.

All hope seemed lost last Friday when the Avalanche allowed the tie-breaking goal on a power play with under a minute remaining in an eventual 5-3 loss to Anaheim at the Pepsi Center, their second loss to the Ducks in 13 days.

The Avalanche were five points out of the playoffs following that defeat with 11 regular-season games remaining, and the mood in the locker room was as gloomy as can be.

Fast forward five days and the situation has improved dramatically.

The Avalanche will play in Dallas on Thursday with the possibility of moving into a tie with Arizona for the second wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference.

A regulation or overtime win against the Stars – no easy task – coupled with a regulation loss by Arizona in Florida would put the Avalanche and Coyotes in a tie for the final playoff position. Both would have 78 points and 32 regulation/overtime wins; each would have eight games to play, with a March 29 meeting in Denver.

The Wild are one point ahead of the Avalanche and have played one more game.

First things first, of course.

The Avalanche need to take care of Dallas, which shut them out 4-0 on March 7, a game in which captain Gabriel Landeskog sustained an upper-body injury that has put him on the shelf for the rest of the regular season and possibly longer if there’s a playoff series.

“Dallas is going to be a huge game for us and an opportunity to grab two points and keep chasing these guys ahead us,” Tyson Jost told the Avalanche web site. “We've said it before, we know what is on the line and we want to get into the playoffs.”

Jost did his part Tuesday in Minnesota, scoring on a second-period breakaway off a Colin Wilson pass for a 2-1 lead in a huge 3-1 win against the Wild. It was his 10th goal of the season and first in 10 games.

Philipp Grubauer continued his strong play, making 36 saves two days after he turned aside 22 shots in a 3-0 win against New Jersey.

Grubauer, now 13-9-3 this season, lowered his goals-against average to 2.83 and raised his save percentage to .907. He has three shutouts, a 0.83 goals-against average and .971 save percentage in his past seven games (six starts).

Tyson Barrie scored his third goal in the past two games for a 1-0 lead before Minnesota’s Zach Parise tied the game with a deflection on a power play. It ended Grubauer’s shutout streak of 93:58.

Ian Cole scored an empty-net goal with 1:35 left in regulation.

"This one … (was) as close to a must-win this time of the year," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar told reporters. “I don't know that (the Wild) needed to win it, but we certainly did to try and get closer, inch closer here, because the runway is running out.”



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