ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 Valeri Nichushkin scored twice and Colorado Avalanche beat the St. Louis Blues 3-1 on Tuesday night to clinch the Central Division and the top seed in the Western Conference.<\/p>\n
It is the third time in five seasons, and first since 2023, that the Avalanche finished as the top team in the conference.<\/p>\n
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Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. LOUIS (AP) \u2014 Valeri Nichushkin scored twice and Colorado Avalanche beat the St. Louis Blues 3-1 on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547207,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5120],"tags":[4139,22381,1363,62229,71,53505,53617,53504,1360,13120,144,38705,38703,57516,30878,5948,4307,5,6,20984,1460,5937,20983,20985,5936,10080,1352,1458,1832,1358,1190,20900,513,835,517,2226,285,4585,1365,33859,1833,1364,1355,1357,30466,4,466,5949,292,5945,5950,1366,1298,19160,4520,2565,1354,1834,1361,24377,43,5946,10079,1783,1388,5938,4584,1362,534,84,14,300,104,5285,5284,1353,1356,3922,7135],"class_list":{"0":"post-547206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-blues","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-american-hockey-league-players","10":"tag-american-ice-hockey-trophies-and-awards","11":"tag-avalanche-blues-score","12":"tag-blues","13":"tag-canada-united-states-cultural-relations","14":"tag-canada-united-states-relations","15":"tag-canada-united-states-sports-relations","16":"tag-canadian-ice-hockey-trophies-and-awards","17":"tag-central-division-nhl","18":"tag-colorado-avalanche","19":"tag-colorado-avalanche-personnel","20":"tag-colorado-avalanche-players","21":"tag-culture-of-the-midwestern-united-states","22":"tag-culture-of-the-united-states","23":"tag-divisions-of-sports-leagues","24":"tag-hat-trick","25":"tag-hockey","26":"tag-ice-hockey","27":"tag-ice-hockey-champions","28":"tag-ice-hockey-competitions","29":"tag-ice-hockey-events","30":"tag-ice-hockey-finals","31":"tag-ice-hockey-games","32":"tag-ice-hockey-governing-bodies","33":"tag-ice-hockey-in-st-louis","34":"tag-ice-hockey-leagues","35":"tag-ice-hockey-people","36":"tag-ice-hockey-players","37":"tag-ice-hockey-teams","38":"tag-joel-hofer","39":"tag-kroenke-sports-entertainment","40":"tag-martin-necas","41":"tag-men","42":"tag-nathan-mackinnon","43":"tag-national-football-league","44":"tag-national-hockey-league","45":"tag-national-hockey-league-divisions","46":"tag-national-hockey-league-draft-picks","47":"tag-national-hockey-league-drafts","48":"tag-national-hockey-league-personnel","49":"tag-national-hockey-league-players","50":"tag-national-hockey-league-teams","51":"tag-national-hockey-league-trophies-and-awards","52":"tag-nfl-teams","53":"tag-nhl","54":"tag-nhl-entry-draft","55":"tag-nhl-first-round-draft-picks","56":"tag-nhl-hockey","57":"tag-nhl-seasons","58":"tag-nhl-team-seasons","59":"tag-north-american-sports-trophies-and-awards","60":"tag-philip-broberg","61":"tag-robert-thomas-ice-hockey","62":"tag-sam-malinski","63":"tag-scott-wedgewood","64":"tag-seasons-in-american-ice-hockey","65":"tag-seasons-in-american-sport","66":"tag-seasons-in-canadian-ice-hockey","67":"tag-seasons-in-ice-hockey","68":"tag-sports","69":"tag-sports-clubs-and-teams","70":"tag-sports-clubs-and-teams-in-st-louis","71":"tag-sports-competitions","72":"tag-sports-events","73":"tag-sports-holding-companies-of-the-united-states","74":"tag-sports-management-companies","75":"tag-sports-organizations","76":"tag-st-louis","77":"tag-st-louis-blues","78":"tag-stanley-cup","79":"tag-stanley-cup-finals","80":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","81":"tag-stlouis","82":"tag-stlouisblues","83":"tag-top-level-sports-leagues","84":"tag-top-tier-ice-hockey-leagues","85":"tag-valeri-nichushkin","86":"tag-western-conference-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}