And the Magpies could be boosted by the quicker-than-anticipated return of Brownlow medallist Dane Swan, who may be considered for selection against West Coast next week.
The Magpies pushed into eighth position with their six-point win over the Power at the MCG on Sunday, and broke a run which has seen them lose five of their past six games.
Vote for your top three players from Collingwood's six-point win in the Magpie Army Player of the Year Award.
But unlike last week's close loss to Adelaide, where they hit the lead in the last term and were overrun, the Magpies stood firm having been dominant through passages of the contest.
"We butchered the ball early and could've been a lot further in front. That's still a massive area of improvement for us, it's been consistent through the whole year," Buckley said post-game."
And there was some frustration upstairs (in the coach's box) around our lack of ability to take advantage of what we felt was a dominance around the ball and control of the game.
"We had to win it a couple of times, and it's probably even more encouraging to see us have the resilience to be able to do that."
Although the club would have been only one win outside of the eight had it lost to the Power, its finals chances would have been teetering.Buckley said the precarious ladder positioning didn't have a say on his message through the game.
"It's really hard to stop players going to the result, and going to the impact it's going to have for the season," he said.
"It's not as if we don't talk about it or frame our opportunity week-by-week with what's going on with the ladder. But the AFL ladder has not been a part of our reviews for the whole season.
"We come back down to the process, we come back down to the type of football that we're playing and need to play and dealing with the opposition week-to-week."
Along with the Pies' lift in form, Buckley acknowledged other reasons to be positive about the last month of the season heading into a possible ninth consecutive finals series.
Senior midfielder Luke Ball returned in the VFL on Saturday and performed well, and youngster Ben Kennedy could be in line for a recall after a strong effort there too.
Alan Toovey will be in the mix for next week, and the club will think about picking Swan, who has recovered well as he deals with a heel complaint.
Swan has not played since Collingwood's round 17 loss to Essendon three weeks ago, but has improved with time on the sidelines.
"The plan was to give him that time to rest and recover, and then to get a good week-and-a-half or two weeks of solid work in to him so he was cherry ripe and ready to go and come and have an impact for us," Buckley said.
"It's a little bit of risk/reward decision-making that needs to happen coming up.
"We need to tread the tightrope...and make sure we make the right decision at the right time without being seduced into what 'Swanny' has traditionally given for a long period of time.
"We haven't had that for probably eight weeks this year because of his ailments and lack of fitness.
We need to get those two right before we pull the trigger."
Collingwood travels to Patersons Stadium to play the Eagles next Sunday.
