Playoffs? Fantasy met reality Saturday night.
A year after finishing as the laughingstock of the league with a club-record-low 48 points, the Avalanche completed the improbable before some 18,000 adoring fans at the Pepsi Center.
Amid a wild Game 7-type atmosphere in the most unique NHL regular-season setting of its kind since 2010, the Avs defeated the St. Louis Blues 5-2 in Game 82 for both teams. By doing so, Colorado finished with 95 points — just a point shy of doubling its total from a year ago — and leapfrogged the Blues for the last Western Conference wild-card spot.