Before the St. Louis Blues left town a week ago, Robert Thomas labeled their four-game road trip “massive.”

The first two games were against the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings — two teams directly ahead of them in the Western Conference wild-card race. The next two were against the Anaheim Ducks and Colorado Avalanche — two division leaders.

When the Blues lost one-goal games in San Jose and L.A. in excruciating fashion, it seemed they could put an end to any dream of remaining in the playoff hunt. San Jose’s Adam Gaudette scored with 27 seconds left in regulation for a 5-4 Sharks victory, and the Kings’ Trevor Moore scored 1:56 into overtime for a 2-1 win. Suddenly, the Blues were five points back with eight games to play.

But then St. Louis went into Anaheim and Colorado and won 6-2 and 3-2, respectively. Now, just as suddenly, the Blues are three points back in the wild-card race with six games to play.

The Nashville Predators hold the No. 2 wild card at the moment, with 81 points and six games remaining. Only the Kings (81 points, six games left) and Sharks (79 points, seven games left) are ahead of the Blues.

The odds of pulling it off remain extremely low, but after back-to-back wins over the Ducks and Avalanche, who came into the games with a combined record of 91-46-15, there’s still reason for Jim Montgomery’s club to pay attention to the standings.

“We don’t talk about it, but I think it’s human nature everyone goes and looks,” Montgomery said. “I do my very poor mathematics, and I’m like, well, I don’t know, if we win our games, we’ll get in.”

Here are the Blues’ six remaining games:

Tuesday vs. Avalanche
Thursday vs. Winnipeg Jets
Saturday at Chicago Blackhawks
April 13 vs. Minnesota Wild
April 14 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins
April 16 at Utah Mammoth

Next up is a rematch against Colorado, which can win the Western Conference with its next win. But given the way the Blues played against the Avalanche Sunday, and the production they’re getting from the Thomas-Jimmy Snuggerud-Dylan Holloway line, it’s hard to count them out.

“Just the way we were battling,” Montgomery said. “It was a physical game, and the first two periods, we won 56 percent of our battles. That’s a really good measuring stick against an elite team like that. Then just the way we kept going to the net hard, the way we played north, we didn’t complicate the game for ourselves. They’re a good team and they had their opportunities. It was a great game.”

The Avs came into the game with an NHL-best 205 five-on-five goals for, compared to just 141 for the Blues (23rd in the league). On Sunday, the Blues outscored them 3-2 in that department.

All three goals came off Thomas’ stick. He stood behind his words, delivering his first NHL hat trick in his 524th career game.

“It’s taken a long time, so it feels good — a little bit of a relief,” Thomas said.

With the score tied 2-2 Sunday, Thomas scored what proved to be the game winner with 2:50 to play. Snuggerud dragged the puck into the slot and then set up the goal.

“That’s a high-end play (by Snuggerud) to fake the shot and slide it over,” Thomas said. “He made a ton of awesome plays today and was a huge reason for our win tonight.”

Snuggerud, deflecting credit, replied: “He’s an All-Star and he played like it.”

Since returning from a minor leg procedure March 1, Thomas has 10 goals and 23 points and is a plus-23 in 16 games. He has at least one point in 14 of those games, and Sunday’s three-point night was his seventh multi-point game since returning.

“He was terrific,” Montgomery said. “Right from his first shift, he had the puck on his stick. He scored the three goals, but he made about six high-end passes. I’m sitting on the bench and I don’t even see the lanes that he sees going full speed. That line has been doing a lot of good for us.”

Snuggerud and Holloway had both assists on all three of Thomas’s goals, and the line combined for nine points and a plus-8 rating. The Blues finished with a 14-7 advantage in high-danger chances, including 8-3 for that line, which was assembled March 6 against the Sharks. In the 14 games since, it’s scored 15 five-on-five goals and given up zero, according to Natural Stat Trick.

But those three are not the only reason the Blues are still in the race.

St. Louis is 13-3-3 since the Olympic break, and with goaltender Joel Hofer picking up the win Sunday, he’s 9-1-2 over that stretch with a 1.71 goals-against average and .943 save percentage. That’s best in the league in that span.

By holding the Avs to just two goals Sunday, the Blues have kept opponents to two or fewer in 15 of 19 games since returning from the break.

“We’re committed to playing defense, and that’s the No. 1 area that’s vastly improved,” Montgomery said. “And because we’re really committed to having good sticks — angling, beating our guy back to our own net — we’re getting opportunities the other way because good defense leads to offense.”

As a result, the Blues have shaved off 11 of the 14 points by which they trailed in the wild-card race coming out of the break. According to NHL Stats, if they finish closing the gap and secure a playoff spot, it would match the 2014-15 Ottawa Senators for the largest deficit a team has overcome to qualify.

“We’re having fun as a team, we’re trying to win games and we’re doing our best to try and possibly do that,” Snuggerud said. “Coming into (Colorado’s Ball Arena) is a tough one and I thought we rose to the occasion, and we need to do the same thing at home (Tuesday).

“We know we’re where we’re at as a team. You want to win games, especially with just five or six games remaining now. Yeah, we’re putting our head down and pushing, but we know where we’re at.”