Avalanche hitting their stride ahead of Utah clash

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The Colorado Avalanche finally received much-needed rest before they get ready to return from the holiday hiatus by visiting the Utah Hockey Club on Friday in Salt Lake City.The Avalanche have relished their first break of four days between games all season. Even better, they are finding their stride thanks to the return of some of their players and a solidified goaltending tandem with the additions of Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood.”They’re just giving us a chance to find our legs sometimes, which is great,” coach Jared Bednar said. “But we’re still an evolving team. I don’t want to say everything’s fixed. It’s not. We have more to do.”The Avalanche went into the break after a 5-2 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Sunday. Colorado erased a 2-1 deficit, scoring 11 seconds after falling behind, and finished with four unanswered goals.The Avalanche have won three consecutive games and seven of nine to move into third place in the Central Division, and they have plenty of players finding their stride.Against Seattle, Joel Kiviranta posted his first career regular-season hat trick, Valeri Nichushkin scored in his fourth straight game, Cale Makar recorded three points and Mikko Rantanen extended his point streak to nine games, a season best. His career mark is 14 games.Their power play has scored four goals in the last three games.”I think for us right now, we have that attack mentality,” Makar said. “And everybody’s shooting, everybody’s working (the puck) around, there’s nobody just holding on to it. So when guys do that, and guys feel spots, it’s really fun to be out there.”Utah will complete a three-game homestand and try to rebound from a 3-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Monday.As disappointing as the defeat was, Utah came close to completing a comeback against the Stars with an excellent third-period performance.”I’m proud of the effort of the guys,” coach Andre Tourigny said. “I’m proud of the pushback we had because we all talk about the second period, which is totally true and fair, but in the third period we had a heck of a pushback. The guys never quit, and they gave their all. They had that passion until the end, so that was great to see the team react that way.”Utah’s loss snapped an eight-game points run (6-0-2), which pushed the club up the standings to two points outside of a playoff position.Like the Avalanche, Utah has its share of players hitting their stride. Barrett Hayton has scored in consecutive games, while Clayton Keller is riding a five-game point streak in which he has collected four goals and six assists. Logan Cooley had a five-game run snapped against Dallas.Now the quest for the team, which is looking to snap a lengthy playoff drought while it was in Phoenix, will be to maintain successful runs and climb further in the standings.”We have to understand game management,” forward Nick Bjugstad told the Salt Lake Tribune. “We’ve got to learn, we’ve got to move on. I think this team has a lot of upside so we want to fulfill that.”