The Vancouver Canucks look to expand their margin in the Northwest Division on nearest rival Colorado in Denver on Tuesday night.

Vancouver (40-23-2) will still technically be ahead of Colorado (37-22-6) even with a loss on Tuesday on the basis of more wins, but would obviously rather be up four points than play the technicalities game.

The Avalanche earned a shutout win over Vancouver at the Pepsi Center in October, but the Canucks won the next three games by a combined score of 16-4.

The Canucks became just the fifth team in the NHL to reach 40 wins this season after rallying against the Nashville Predators for a 4-2 win on Sunday.

Mikael Samuelsson and Jannik Hansen scored the key markers in the third, with Henrik Sedin adding an empty-net goal. Alex Edler had scored in the first for the Canucks.

The third-period rally came after some line juggling from coach Alain Vigneault.

"We had to move some pieces around and it seemed to get our brain into the game and our execution was better in the third," Vigneault said.

While Sedin has six assists in the last six games, he hasn't scored on an NHL goalie since Jan. 30, a span of 12 games.

The great part for the Canucks is that the rest of the team is picking up the slack for the player who led them many times over the first three months of the season.

Vancouver has scored 17 goals in its four games since the end of the Olympic break.

Ryan Kesler, announced on Monday as the cover boy for the next NHL video game offering from 2K Sports, has a nine-game point streak. Kesler has five goals and five assists during his career-best streak.

Samuelsson, meanwhile, has scored in three straight and five of the last six. The veteran Swede is already at a career high with 24 goals.

The Avalanche are coming off a 7-3 pounding of St. Louis on Saturday.

Chris Stewart recorded his first career hat trick, part of a big week for the sophomore forward that earned him the NHL's top star honour.

Avalanche winger Milan Hejduk returned after missing 17 games with knee and back problems and scored two goals against the Blues, while goalie Craig Anderson made 39 saves in his 20th consecutive start.

The Canucks will have little rest, continuing their epic road trip on Wednesday against Phoenix.