The Avalanche power play needs to turn the lights back on

I feel like I’ve used the word “lethargic” to describe about half of the Colorado Avalanche’s games so far this season, but they simply can’t seem to string multiple strong efforts together.

In the 3-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks, we saw some spirited sequences from the Avs but ultimately they were outworked and outplayed by the host Canucks. All three Canucks goals were scored by former Av Kiefer Sherwood as he registered his first career hat trick.

I can talk through the caveats all I want, such as the illness that has ripped through the Avalanche locker room and the Avs playing their 11th road game of their last 14 games across four different timezones, but the reality is that these games still count in the standings.

The slow start for the Avalanche this season has left them in the thick of the Western Conference’s wild card race right now and they can’t seem to find any separation.

Two new goaltenders have picked up the play in that area for the Avs, but they’re still struggling to find the kind of form expected of them given the talent on hand.

Let’s talk about their loss tonight in the first game of their current three-game road trip.

Another slow first period costs the Avalanche

The Avs have slowed their pace from being easily the worst first-period team to now just being one of the worst first-period teams. I guess that’s progress, but this is still a club that is getting out of the gate far too slowly.

In tonight’s loss, the Avs gave up the advantage in shot attempts (20-11) shots on goal (10-6), scoring chances (11-4), and high-danger chances. This is despite having power play time that they did nothing with (we’ll get there).

Mackenzie Blackwood was strong once again between the pipes, allowing only one goal early. That goal is particularly disappointing because it’s pure heart and hustle from the Canucks. The Avs had a couple of windows of opportunity to get the pucks out, but couldn’t wrangle the puck and find the right openings.

A scramble in front of the net ended in Kiefer Sherwood finding a loose puck that Blackwood appeared to believe he was on top of and Calvin de Haan was unable to locate it before Sherwood. A little tap-in from Sherwood gave the Canucks the lead going into the intermission.

I liked how the Avs played the rest of the game at 5v5, but they cannot continue to no-show first periods and chase games. I know it hasn’t been as much of an issue recently, but tonight still felt like an all-too-familiar formula so far this year.

Colorado’s top line can’t go that quiet

There were individual things from Nathan MacKinnon that will probably drive me crazy on my rewatch of the game tomorrow morning, but tonight on live viewing it looked like another poor effort from him defensively but he added the bonus of not being as dangerous offensively as we’ve seen.

Colorado just isn’t built for success if the top line gives them nothing (I’m ignoring the 6v5 goal with under a minute to play that merely served to ruin Thatcher Demko’s shutout bid).

There were chances from some of Colorado’s big guns, but they just couldn’t get them to drop tonight. I don’t think they played poorly, but when they don’t score any goals, the Avs will struggle to win games.

If there was a top Avs player who you wanted more from tonight, it was Cale Makar. Neither he nor Quinn Hughes was particularly good in this head-to-head matchup of Norris Trophy winners, but Hughes got more help down the lineup and that was the difference tonight.

This was also a game where you saw a frustrated version of Jared Bednar. He wasn’t getting what he wanted from the lines he started the night with, so he started tinkering with various combinations. MacKinnon and Rantanen played multiple shifts alongside Artturi Lehkonen, Val Nichushkin, and Ross Colton as he sought to kickstart them.

The results obviously weren’t what Bednar was hoping for as the Avs offense just could not break through.

This Avs power play sucks right now

I’ve written about it quite a bit already, but any team that can’t get a goal occasionally from the power play is going to struggle to win consistently because it’s just hard to beat teams purely on 5v5 play alone.

Colorado’s power play tonight was nothing short of disastrous, however. They had four chances against Vancouver’s two but despite having double the time with the man advantage, the Canucks still managed to have more shots on goal than the Avs power play.

The Avs managed just seven shot attempts in eight minutes to go along with four shots on goal, four scoring chances, and two high-danger chances. That’s just not good enough.

And then there was the dagger goal, also from Sherwood, as MacKinnon telegraphed his zone-entry pass and had it picked off and turned into a breakaway goal in the other direction for a shorthanded goal and 2-0 Vancouver lead. It was deflating in every sense of the word.

Coming into tonight, the Avs had a 6.7% success rate on the power play in December. They followed that up by scoring on zero of their four chances tonight. The only reason the Avs don’t have the worst power play in the league this month is because, somehow, Nashville’s power play has a 0% success rate. It could be worse, I guess?

The gains they’ve made on the penalty kill have been almost entirely erased by a power play that has gone dark. Their puck movement is stagnant as opposing teams know they are looking for the bumper play into the middle of the ice all the time. When it’s not there, the Avs (primarily MacKinnon) are still forcing it and it is predictably not going well.

Broken plays, rebounds, tips, nothing is working. Cale Makar shooting lights-out from the blueline isn’t a path to consistent success. They need to change something up here because swapping personnel alone has not sparked it. They would be better off letting MacKinnon rip predictable one-timers versus simply not shooting, which is too frequently what they are doing right now.

This is a unit that needs to start finding solutions.