The regular-season finale at the Pepsi Center — an unofficial Western Conference playoff play-in game — never was supposed to be like this. The Avalanche and St. Louis Blues weren’t expected to be in this unique position Saturday night.
At the outset of the season, some questioned if Colorado would even reach the club-record-low 48 points it earned from the disaster that was last season. And the Blues, who reached the Western Conference quarterfinals a year ago as the Central Division’s No. 3 seed, seemed destined to easily make the playoffs for the seventh consecutive year and compete for the Stanley Cup.