"We had the day yesterday to rest, move past what we've done lately. It's time to move on and really stop this thing (possible losing streak)," Bednar said. "We want to try and make sure that we don't lose two in a row in the second half (of the season). Our resolve and our commitment and our desire to win this game has to be real strong tonight against a tough team."
The Avalanche can continue to make up ground in the standings this evening, as it is chasing the Blues for third place in the Central Division. Colorado, which presently holds the second wild-card position in the Western Conference and is fifth in the division, is just four points behind and has three games in hand on St. Louis.
The Blues are coming off a 3-0 win over the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday and have a 3-1-0 record since returning from their bye week.
"It's going to be a good test for us to bounce back against a team in our division," said Avs forward Tyson Jost. "It's a huge two points for us. We know we have to play better if we want to grab two points."
One of the areas that the Avalanche has been successful at this season is getting a lead. Colorado has scored first in 29 of its 47 games this year and is 23-4-2 when finding the twine first.
During the win streak, the Avs had the initial tally in each of the 10 games and only trailed for 94 total seconds.
"When we're playing that way and have our jump and using our speed, we're a hard team to beat," Jost said of having good starts. "We definitely have to come out flying and use our speed.
"It's fun when we're playing that way, too. It just feels like we click. When we're playing that fast, speed game, it's definitely fun to play in. We have to get back to that."
While the win streak was strong evidence of Colorado finding its game during the dog days of winter, the team had actually been playing better for quite some time. The Avalanche is 15-4-1 in its last 20 games dating back to Dec. 9.
"We were together. We played all 60 minutes. Didn't do any crazy mistakes, especially at the end of periods," said Avs right wing Nail Yakupov. "We stuck with our structure and were simple sometimes. That's what makes teams real successful."
This will be the final outing for the Avalanche before the NHL All-Star Break and is the third-game of the road trip. Colorado will return home following the contest for the weekend before heading back out on the road on Monday to complete a stretch of six straight road games.
