New England Black Wolves coach Glenn Clark liked a lot of things from his team’s overtime victory last week against Calgary.

“Still things to tweak and improve on, but certainly the effort, the competitiveness and the way we just kept battling was nice to see,” Clark said in his weekly conference call.

But don’t discount the importance of the Black Wolves continuing on the winning path if they hope to reach the National Lacrosse League playoffs for the third straight season.

New England (7-8) travels to Colorado (10-6) at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Pepsi Center in Denver, with the Black Wolves one game out of a playoff spot in the compact NLL East Division.

Rochester, Georgia and Buffalo lead the East with identical records of 8-7, while Toronto and New England trail at 7-8. The top three teams make the playoffs in each division, with Saskatchewan (12-3), Colorado and Calgary (6-9) already qualifying in the West.

“The importance of the game is equal to what we faced this past weekend,” Clark said. “It’s another big challenge, a very difficult building to win in against a very good team.

“Our position really hasn’t changed from last weekend in terms of the perceived level of desperation that we have to win games.”

The Black Wolves trailed 5-1 early against Calgary before rallying with three goals in a span of 1:11 near the end of the second quarter to close within 6-5 at the half. New England’s Stephan Leblanc scored with 6.3 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime, where Johnny Powless scored the game-winner, snapping a four-game losing streak.

Kevin Crowley, who has six straight hat tricks, leads the Black Wolves with 63 points on 44 goals and 19 assists. Leblanc has a team-high 39 assists and is second with 59 points.

Ryan Benesch leads Colorado in goals (34), assists (53) and points (87). The Mammoth beat the Black Wolves 19-11 on Feb. 18 at Mohegan Sun Arena.

v.fulkerson@theday.com