The Colorado Avalanche are off to an historic start. Their reward? A whopping three-point lead on the second-place Dallas Stars.

Such is life in the NHL’s Central Division.

The Avalanche recently became the second team in NHL history to go beyond the first 25 games of a season with just one regulation loss. Through 29 games they have just two defeats, with neither of those regulation losses coming at Ball Arena. It’s been a remarkably impressive start from a team that looks motivated to make it back to the Stanley Cup final.

And those pesky Stars are giving them plenty of reasons to stay motivated all season long.

The months of December and January can get a little sleepy in the NHL. Days start to run together and every game starts to feel exactly like the game you watched two days prior. The excitement of the start of the season is gone and the stretch run is still a ways away. It would be easy for the Avalanche to take their foot off the gas and cruise for a bit considering what they’ve accomplished early in the season. Any slip up this season and the Stars might just snatch the Central Division lead from them.

Over their last 10 games, the Avalanche are sitting pretty with an 8-1-1 record. That one regulation loss means they’ve actually let the Stars make up ground by one point, because Dallas has gone 8-0-2. It’s an absurd race atop the Central, so absurd that a 7-2-1 record from the Minnesota Wild means they’re losing ground.

To the credit of the Avalanche, they’re trying to stay focused on what they can control.

“For us, I think we’re just focused on what we’re doing,” Cale Makar told The Denver Gazette. “At this point in the season, it’s all about us and we got to make sure that we’re fine tuning things. There’s going to come a time where we’re going to get tested in a game and we got to find certain ways to win.”

That doesn’t mean the current situation isn’t a little annoying.

“I’d love to have a lot more breathing room, but we don’t,” Jared Bednar said.

The Avalanche and Stars don’t meet again until March 6 in Dallas. Between that evening and April 4 they’ll play three times. Quirky scheduling by the NHL, but those three games could matter a whole heck of a lot. Neither one of these teams want to play each other in the first round. (Thanks again for that playoff system, Gary Bettman). If you’re the Avalanche, you want the Stars and the Wild (or perhaps the Mammoth) to beat each other up in round one before any potential rematch in round two.

If the Avalanche want to make those games matter just a little less when it comes to positioning late in the season, they must keep this train rolling the way it has been. Perhaps they don’t need any extra encouragement, but a push from the Stars during these winter months could make sure the team stays consistent with their habits throughout the course of the entire season.

“I think we’re looking at that every day, especially when you get on a little bit of a streak,” Bednar said. “I think you’re going to get every team’s best night and best game, so it’s motivation enough for us and what we’re trying to accomplish.”

What they’re trying to accomplish is another Stanley Cup victory. The top spot in the West would help them achieve that. If competition brings out the best in everyone, then the Stars putting a little heat on the Avalanche may be a good thing in the long run.