When the Colorado Avalanche head into town, discussions almost always center on Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar, but ahead of Friday’s clash, the Ducks can point to a big three of their own.

While they’ve got a ways to go to be mentioned consistently in the same breath with the core of 2022’s Stanley Cup champions, Troy Terry, Frank Vatrano and Jackson LaCombe have been getting it done of late, including in Wednesday’s upset victory over the league-leading Winnipeg Jets.

Terry tops the Ducks in scoring, thanks in large part to his current surge of 13 points in 11 games. Vatrano has tied him for the team lead in goals with nine as the two have found synergy while flanking veteran Ryan Strome, leading Vatrano to explode for seven of his nine goals this season in those same 11 contests.

There was reciprocity between play-drivers, as Terry credited Vatrano for playing a frenetic yet attentive game that gave him more time and real estate to create opportunities.

“It’s no secret how good of a shooter he is, but the little things that he does just make my life and (Strome’s) life easier,” Terry said. “Everything he does: his forechecking, he gets pucks back for me, he creates space for me and he’s physical. He’s really like the perfect teammate. He blocks shots, he hits and he skates hard. He had a lot of good karma coming his way because they weren’t going in at the start of the year.”

While Colorado’s nucleus consists of the NHL’s leading scorer (MacKinnon), its third-most prolific attacker (Rantanen) and its top producer from the blue line (Makar), the Ducks have leaned on Terry, Vatrano and the emergent LaCombe.

LaCombe made the leap from the University of Minnesota to the pros and appeared inundated by his transition at times last season and even this year as he dealt with an early-campaign illness. LaCombe has seven points in his past seven games after racking up five in his last three, while shrewdly activating to create even more opportunities.

On Wednesday, Ducks coach Greg Cronin called him the Ducks’ “best defenseman by a long shot,” and said that he had developed considerable confidence year over year.

“I watch him from the bench now and it’s like, ‘OK, you have a guy that’s a legitimate difference-maker,’” Cronin said. “Makar is very flashy and he’s obviously an all-world defenseman. Jackson doesn’t have the same pop to his skating, but he’s got a very cerebral way that he plays the game.”

While the fatigue and recent overall malaise from the Jets, who started the year by winning 15 of 16 games to buoy them in the standings, played a role in Wednesday’s loss, the Ducks played a substantively strong game that could have produced a more comfortable, less dramatic win than they got from Terry’s tie-breaking goal with less than 30 seconds to play.

“We were shooting the puck more, and we were shooting the puck with more of a purpose,” Terry said. “We weren’t forcing plays, we were possessing it more, and that makes a big difference over the full length of the game.”

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Ahead of the matchup with Colorado, which overhauled its goaltending in-season in the hopes of ascending from the middle of the standings to the top with its stellar offense, Cronin said he’d like to get more of his young defenders playing with the consistency and assertiveness LaCombe has and to get other forward lines going to diversify the Ducks’ attack.

“If you get everybody playing to that level, then you’re going to win a lot of hockey games,” Cronin said. “So it’s up to us as coaches, and to the players, to try and find that energy to play as a cohesive unit and generate the chances that [Strome’s line] did.”

Colorado at Ducks

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Where: Honda Center

How to watch: Victory+, KCOP (Ch. 13)