WINNIPEG — Mikko Rantanen found a stick he liked, and shot the Colorado Avalanche into the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The Winnipeg Jets played their best game of the series facing elimination, but the Avs continued to put pucks past the pending Vezina Trophy winner and advanced with a 6-3 victory Tuesday night in Game 5 at Canada Life Centre.

Colorado won four straight in this series after dropping Game 1, and will now awaits the winner of Dallas-Vegas in the second round.

“How hard we worked and how hard we battled this series was amazing,” Nathan MacKinnon said. “Before the series, I think we came in really humble. We weren’t playing well. These guys just beat us 7-0 (on April 13), so it was a big wake up call … super proud of the guys.”

A little more than two minutes after Tyler Toffoli had brought the Jets even early in the third period, Rantanen scored for the first time in this series to put Colorado in front. Rantanen had been so frustrated earlier in this game that he had snapped a stick in two pieces.

The new stick worked out. Rantanen tipped a shot from the top of the zone by Devon Toews past Connor Hellebuyck to put Colorado in front 4:11 into the third period.

Rantanen scored again to make it 5-3 on a one-timer from Nathan MacKinnon during a 2-on-1 with 11:59 remaining in the third. MacKinnon and Cale Makar finished with nine points in this series, while Rantanen and Artturi Lehkonen had eight.

“Luck wasn’t really bouncing at times our way, but that’s what happens sometimes,” Rantanen said. “You get frustrated. I was going to try avoid doing that. Overall, the series was really, really good for us. I think we got better after every game.”

Colorado scored 24 times in five games on Hellebuyck, and four more into an empty net, the last from Josh Manson on Tuesday night. Winnipeg finished the regular season tied for the fewest goals allowed. The Avs scored the most, and great offense beat great defense repeatedly in this series.

Winnipeg finished with 110 points, three more than Colorado, to earn home-ice advantage in this series, but it’s another early playoff exit for the Jets and a question-filled offseason beckons in Southern Manitoba.

The Avs scored first, but into the wrong net. Kyle Connor’s shot trickled behind Alexandar Georgiev and when Manson tried to sweep it out of danger. It hit Lehkonen and the edge of the crease and caromed back into the Colorado net instead.

Colorado got that one back a little more than two minutes later. Right after the fourth line had a great shift, the top trio went to work. MacKinnon carried the puck into the zone, and Valeri Nichushkin finished a tic-tac-toe play from Rantanen and Toews to make it 1-1 just 3:18 in.

Yakov Trenin capped another strong shift from the fourth line with Colorado’s second goal 5:42 into the second period. Trenin fell in the neutral zone early in the shift, which earned a Bronx cheer from the crowd.

Then he worked over Neal Pionk behind the net for an initial shot and beat the defenseman to the rebound for his first goal of the series. Trenin cupped his ear to the suddenly silent crowd, then egged them on before jumping into the glass.

“All series long, (the fourth line’s) forechecking through the course of this series was outstanding,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “The work that they put in, to not only put pressure on their (defense), but to come up with pucks, the physicality. Playing to their identity as a line was outstanding and they got rewarded for their hard work.”

Just like the first period, the team that went down answered quickly. Miles Wood took a penalty trying to get past Colin Miller. Fourteen seconds later, Josh Morrissey scored his third goal of the series on a one-timer from above the right circle.

The hockey gods evened the fluke bounces out later in the second. Lehkonen sent the puck in the general direction of the Winnipeg net, but it was going well wide … until it hit Pionk’s stick and went in the net at 13:45 of the second.

It was Lehkonen’s fifth goal of the series. He and Nichushkin both scored in every game.

Georgiev finished with 33 saves. He allowed seven goals on 23 shots in the opening game of this series, but then proceeded to outplay Hellebuyck the rest of the way.

“(Georgiev) was outstanding all series,” Trenin said. “Very proud of how he came back and just shut up all the haters.”

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As if Colorado consumers weren’t already reeling from years of inflation, a federal regulation is about to raise what it costs to fill up your tank. By an estimated 60 cents per gallon.

Starting May 15, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will require northern Front Range gas stations to sell much pricier, reformulated gasoline all summer long. The premise for the higher-grade fuel — blended to reduce ozone-forming pollutants — is that our state has fallen short of meeting more stringent ozone restrictions imposed by the feds on nine Front Range counties, from Douglas County north to the Wyoming border.

As reported this week by the Colorado Chamber of Commerce news service Sum & Substance, Gov. Jared Polis has launched an eleventh-hour appeal to the federal agency to back off of its deadline for requiring the more expensive, reformulated fuel, or RFG. In an April 4 letter to the EPA, Sum & Substance reports, Polis tells agency chief Michael Regan he commissioned an analysis that has revealed “onerous and counterproductive impacts.”

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“RFG requirements threaten Colorado’s fuel supply, will raise prices and may result in shortages at the pump,” the governor wrote. “Moreover, this antiquated mandate creates an additional unintended consequence: We are seeing significant activity and requests to expand fossil fuel facilities such as terminals in the most polluted areas of Colorado in the ozone non-attainment area to supply RFG.”

The letter, which seeks a waiver from the mandate, continues, “These proposed projects from your elective enforcement of this requirement will increase emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other ozone precursor emissions in the community, and given the lack of supply in Colorado will increase intra- and interstate fuel delivery truck traffic resulting in more, not less, harmful air pollution in our most vulnerable communities…In short, forcing this requirement on Colorado will create more air pollution.”

It wouldn’t be the first time a federal regulation backfired — resulting in unintended consequences that are in fact the opposite of the mandate’s intent. But kudos to Polis for fighting the good fight on this one, wherever it leads. All the more so considering Polis’ own turnabout on the issue.

Several years ago, Polis was welcoming the pending mandate. He wrote the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2019, shortly after taking office, urging the agency to proceed with more stringent ozone standards.

Since then, he has seen the light — undoubtedly anticipating the likely public uproar at the EPA rule’s projected impact on the price at the pump. Colorado business leaders also reached out to the governor when the issue first came to light and pleaded with him to seek a waiver.

As we noted at that time, the EPA has been tilting at Colorado’s ozone levels for years. The Colorado Department of Health and Environment maintains that the state’s air quality actually has improved greatly over the past several decades. But, as a department official told The Denver Gazette in 2022, the state has had to “comply with increasingly stringent federal standards.”

As we also noted then, critics of the EPA policy contend a lot of the region’s ozone issues stem from uncontrollable, natural, out-of-state and even international sources.

“Most of our ozone, 60%, is naturally occurring, blows in from other states and countries, or is caused by wildfires,” Rich Coolidge of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association told The Denver Gazette.

The governor of course has been the driver of a green-energy agenda that has raised prices ever higher for Colorado energy consumers. It’s about time he tries to get them some relief, for a change.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board