Describing goaltender Darcy Kuemper’s season, Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar used his arm to trace an upward trajectory.

“He’s been on a steady climb for a long time now, for me,” Bednar said last month.

The beginning and end were uneven, but Kuemper’s first regular season in Colorado saw the Avalanche remain at the top of the Western Conference. Kuemper finished with a 37-12-4 record and 2.54 goals-against average, .921 save percentage and five shutouts.

A key ingredient to a Stanley Cup Finals run is exceptional goaltending. That’s what Colorado needs from Kuemper.

This is his 10th NHL season and Kuemper has 18 playoff appearances to his name. Half of those were spread across three postseason runs with the Minnesota Wild. The other half were in the 2020 playoff bubble, where the Avalanche got an up-close look at the then-29-year-old Saskatoon, Saskatchewan native.

“When we went and got him, I was really excited just because he stole a lot of games when we played against the Coyotes,” teammate Erik Johnson said.

“I was thrilled when we got him and he’s lived up to it lately.”

During his most recent postseason run, Kuemper started all nine games for Arizona. He helped the Coyotes take a qualifying round series, 3-1 against the Nashville Predators. That earned Arizona a first-round tilt with Colorado.

Kuemper turned in 111 stops the first three games, highlighted by a 49-save performance in Arizona’s Game 3 win. That tied his playoff career high. Early on, Bednar said, there was the “nerve-wracking” concern that the Avalanche were facing a hot goalie that could end their postseason.

The Avalanche rolled to a pair of 7-1 victories and finished the series in five games.

It wasn’t just the 2020 playoff run. Johnson, who’s been in Colorado longer than anyone else on the roster, put Kuemper in the company of Semyon Varlamov and last year’s Vezina Trophy finalist Philipp Grubauer as far as goaltenders he’s played in front of.

Grubauer was in net for a second-round exit in 2021, then departed in free agency. The Avalanche replaced him with Kuemper the same day, making a deal with Arizona that included a first-round pick.

He’s due to become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Plenty could happen before then.

“Took him a little bit to kind of settle in. But since the middle part of December, end of December, he’s been rock solid,” Johnson said. “Super confident in him.”