If their last game before the COVID pause was a character win then the Avalanche doubled down on that Thursday.

Colorado returned from a five-day pause and practiced once before proceeding to defeat the St. Louis Blues 4-2 at Enterprise Center and clinching a spot in the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs.

It was the second time in eight days the Avs had beaten their division rival with all the odds stacked against them.

“It shows a lot of team character,” winger Andre Burakovsky said of the win.

The last time the two teams played, Colorado was without its starting goalie Philipp Grubauer (COVID protocol) and middle-six winger Joonas Donskoi (COVID) while the rest of the team was feeling lethargic after receiving vaccine shots in the ensuing days.

This time, the Avs were also without the NHL’s second-leading goal scorer Mikko Rantanen (COVID) as well as Grubauer and Donskoi. They once again had to turn to trade deadline acquisition Devan Dubnyk in goal — and killed off four consecutive penalties in a span of 13:55.

Dubnyk was solid, making 25 saves to improve to 2-0 with the Avs. And Burakovsky stepped into Rantanen’s role on the top line and top power-play unit and scored two goals, including the game-winner.

Forwards Brandon Saad and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (empty-netter) also scored for Colorado.

“It’s obviously two unbelievable players I’m playing with,” said Burakovsky, who along with linemates Nathan MacKinnon and Gabe Landeskog combined for seven points. “They’re helping me out and making it kind of easy for me. But it’s not an easy role to fill in for Mikko. He’s one of the best.”

It’s the fourth straight year that the Avalanche have qualified for the playoffs. They join division foe Vegas as the only two teams to clinch. Colorado is two points back of the Golden Knights but has two games in hand.

MacKinnon recorded three assists, two of which came on Burakovsky’s goals, to increase his point streak, the longest currently in the NHL, to 12 games. He also has a career-high seven-game assist streak.

MacKinnon leads the Avalanche with 56 points in 40 games and is fourth in the NHL in points-per-game (1.4).

The Avs started the game strong out of the gate, but an early penalty called against Saad washed the momentum away and led to the Blues scoring first. The power-play goal from Jaden Schwartz was just the 16th time St. Louis has scored the first goal of the game, almost half as many times as the Avalanche (31).

Saad’s penalty was the difference-maker early in the first, but Saad’s goal was just as important before the intermission. The first-year Av took a pass from Tyson Jost after a hard-working shift in the offensive zone and put it past goalie Jordan Binnington to make it 1-1 with 31 seconds left in the period.

Jost’s setup increased his point and assist streak to five games.

Coaching leader

Avs coach Bednar coached his 360th game with the Avalanche on Thursday, passing Bob Hartley for the most in club history. Bednar was hired late in the offseason of 2016 under dire circumstances and was 22-56-4 in his first year behind the bench.

Despite all the heat surrounding the team that summer, Bednar remained head coach. The Avs have not missed the playoffs since.

“I’m grateful to Joe (Sakic) for sticking with me after that year because I know that probably wasn’t an easy decision,” Bednar said. “To be able to still be here and coaching this team that I love and watching these players grow, it means the world to me and I’ll never take it for granted.”

Schedule change

The NHL announced changes to the Avalanche’s schedule Wednesday to make up the three games the Avs had postponed.

  • April 26: @ STL (was April 20)
  • May 10: @ VGK (was April 26)
  • May 12: vs LAK (was April 16)
  • May 13: vs LAK (was April 18)