Joe Sakic 37-year-old Colorado star has team-leading 20 goals and 52 points this season Avalanche center Joe Sakic (19) will start for the West team in tonight's NHL All-Star Game in Dallas. Photo by The Associated Press

One of these days, the Colorado Avalanche will host a "Joe Sakic Night" and retire the star center's number.

The 18,007-seat Pepsi Center will be full that night, a far cry from what the team plays to these days in the post-lockout NHL.

Nobody can predict when Sakic's No. 19 will join Patrick Roy's 33 and Ray Bourque's 77 in the rafters, least of all Sakic.

At age 37, the future Hall of Famer shows no signs of slowing. He'll start for the Western Conference tonight in the NHL All-Star Game in Dallas.

"It's always an honor," Sakic recently said in Denver of his 13th All-Star selection. "It means you're doing something well and people appreciate it."

Tonight marks the first NHL All-Star Game in three years. The lockout canceled the 2005 showcase, and there was no game played last year because of the Winter Olympics.

"It does seem like a long time," said Sakic, the Most Valuable Player of the 2004 All-Star Game in St. Paul, Minn. "But I'm glad it's back. It's always an exciting game for the fans and lots of fun for the players. Personally, I missed it."

Sakic has a team-leading 20 goals and 52 points at the All-Star break. He's had to shoulder much of the burden for Colorado, a team in transition, but has held up well.

"I do a lot of off-ice things and try to be smart about what I eat and try to take care of myself," he said. "As you get older, hopefully, you get smarter."

The Avalanche has not made much headway in its quest to be a playoff team. If the postseason were to begin today, Colorado, fourth in the five-team Northwest Division with 51 points, would be left out.

However, the Avalanche is only five points from the top spot, occupied by Calgary and Vancouver.

"Once the salary cap came in, you knew there'd be changes," Sakic said of Colorado's roster reorganization. "But I like our team. It's a hard-working group of guys who get along."

The lockout, which wiped out the 2005 season, might have been a blessing in disguise for Sakic. Instead of getting beaten up and worn down over the grind of a full NHL season, his body got a chance to rest.

"The first couple of months, it was OK," Sakic said. "But around January, you start to get the itch to want to be out there."

Changes in the game have also helped, Sakic said. The clutching and grabbing has been phased out and the skating and passing have returned.

"The game was going in the wrong direction," said Sakic, who broke into the NHL in 1988 when the Avalanche were the Quebec Nordiques. "The skating and the skill are back, and I think that's what the game needed."

In December, Sakic moved into the NHL's top 10 in career scoring, notching his 1,533rd point to pass Paul Coffey. He won't catch the top three -- Wayne Gretzky (2,857 points), Mark Messier (1,887) and Gordie Howe (1,850) -- but Sakic, who has 1,541 career points, could move past Bourque, his former teammate, and Phil Esposito to be No. 8. He trails Esposito by 49 points and Bourque by 38.

"You never really think about statistics when you're starting out," Sakic said. "My goal was to try to play well and last maybe 10 years. But to do something like this, you have to play with great teammates and stay healthy."

Sakic said he thinks only about the present, evaluating his future plans on a year-to-year basis.

"I don't get into (thinking about retirement) too much," he said of . "My focus is trying to help us get into the playoffs.

"After the season, I'll look and see where I'm at. I just want to keep all my options open."