Tyson Jost couldn’t see the net when the puck lift­ed off Avalanche team­mate Cale Makar’s stick and flew his direc­tion. The eyes on the back of Jost’s head took over from there.

Jost, insert­ed into Colorado’s line­up Fri­day with for­ward Joonas Don­skoi “unfit” to play against Ari­zona, poked his stick at the Makar slap­per that was head­ed wide-right of Coy­otes goalie Dar­cy Kuem­per. Jost drew eye-con­tact with Makar, found the puck, and redi­rect­ed it just below Keumper’s glove.

“It def­i­nite­ly felt good to go in,” Jost said.

His sec­ond-peri­od goal helped lift the Avs to a dra­mat­ic Game 2 vic­to­ry, 3–2, in Edmon­ton — the city where Jost grew up — and was anoth­er sign of Colorado’s ros­ter depth and Jost’s ris­ing place with­in it.

The for­mer first-round NHL draft pick arrived in the play­off “bub­ble” as the team’s No. 13 for­ward. Now, with the health sta­tus unknown for Don­skoi and Avs for­ward Vladislav Namest­nikov (day-to-day, unspec­i­fied injury), Jost is in posi­tion to cap­i­tal­ize once again Sat­ur­day for Game 3 with an oppor­tu­ni­ty to go up 3–0 in the series.

Jost told reporters on a video con­fer­ence call he was told by the coach­ing staff after Thursday’s option­al skate to “be ready.” That trans­lat­ed to a third-line role, along­side Andre Burakovsky and J.T. Com­pher, with 10:20 in ice time — and no sec­ond greater than his tipped goal in the sec­ond period.

“I want to be play­ing,” Jost said. “It’s play­off hock­ey and it’s fun to be a part of. It felt good to con­tribute and it was awe­some to get that win, too.”

Jost’s spot in the line­up has fluc­tu­at­ed all sea­son with strong spec­u­la­tion he would be moved before the trade dead­line. Jost stuck around, and accord­ing to coach Jared Bed­nar, he put in the prepa­ra­tion required to rise up the depth chart.

“I love (Jost’s) work eth­ic,” Bed­nar said. “He’s added to his tool­box and found dif­fer­ent ways to con­tribute for us. We use him on the penal­ty kill. He comes in (today) and he’s killing penal­ties, he’s hard on pucks in the offen­sive zone, he goes to the net … and gets a deflec­tion goal. He’s find­ing ways to be a con­trib­u­tor to help our team win.”

Jost was quick to cred­it team­mates for his goal, the fourth of his NHL post­sea­son career, with lit­tle time to cel­e­brate before puck drop at 1 p.m. Sat­ur­day for Game 3.

“It was nice to get in the line­up,” Jost said. “I’m hap­py to contribute.”