Breakout: Avs winning because they're getting puck out

You spend more time in the other team’s zone, you tend to do better in a hockey game. Film at 11, thank you Sherlock, good analysis Einstein. That the Colorado Avalanche is 4-1 after five games has a lot to do with the fact that, just like Friday night’s win over Anaheim, the Avs are spending a lot less time in their own zone than what seems like…forever.

It’s how the Avs are doing so that was put to Jared Bednar following a game in which his team outshot the Ducks 39-18. How many times were we subject to an Avs team that was reduced to just throwing pucks up the wall out of hemmed-in desperation, only to usually have them intercepted by opposing point men and an entire new cycle or two of opposition scoring chances? If you answered “a ton”, you are correct.

The Avs of recent vintage just couldn’t get the puck out of their zone. Whether it was nobody to pass the puck to, because forwards were too gassed getting back or forwards too high in the zone or D-men who just couldn’t get a puck from A to B, it was the team’s biggest problem. Aside from an opening night contest in which they still had some issues in that area, the Avs of the last four games have generally gotten the puck quickly and efficiently out of the zone.

For Bednar, it all starts with “numbers.”

“In order to break out – every team is going to come at you hard – you gotta get your numbers back,” Bednar said. “If you’re late, and you make the first play and you’re still skating toward the puck coming back slowly, then you get jammed up all the time. We’re getting down in there, we’re getting our toes pointed in the right direction and then we’re making some plays.”

They’re making the simple plays. Defensemen are getting to pucks first more often than not and they are seeing outlets, i.e., forwards in the right position and angles to move forward, and getting it to them. One player on the team described this new defensive system to me this way: “Short passes, guys closer together, nothing too spread out.”

The Avs have tried to play that style before, but the personnel was just not quick enough on the back end. Too many older veterans, too many slow-footed guys. This defensive corps isn’t perfect and there’s a hell of a long way to go, but the difference in the Avs’ play in their own end has been noticeably better so far.

“Our forwards are going to the right spots,” Bednar said. “We’ve got some speed in there, we’ve got some grittiness in there. Some nights it works better than others. If you look back at the Jersey game, we made the first touches perfect, the second touch went up to the wings and then we turned it over in the neutral zone. We couldn’t complete the breakout because we weren’t in the right spots quick enough. We’ve adjusted in the last three games.”

It’s just a much easier game to play when you’re not stuck in your end. That’s not a revelation, but for this young Avs team, it seems to be.