NASHVILLE — In a season full of historical superlatives, the one remaining issue for the Colorado Avalanche is even more surreal than all of the success.
How can a team loaded with this much firepower, a club that is romping through its schedule with the most goals per game in the league, struggle so much on the power play?
When the Avs face the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena, they will try to become the fifth team in NHL history to reach 50 points in 30 games played. And yet, they began Tuesday ranked 23rd in the league on the power play, converting 16% of their opportunities.
“We need sharper details. I mean, look, we have five or six guys who would be on No. 1 units of every single team in the league,” Avs defenseman Cale Makar said. “We’ve just got to find ways to prove we can capitalize. It’s good that the team is rolling right now, but it’s definitely a point of emphasis for sure.
“It’s all on us. It’s execution and trying to find ways to break the other team down. A lot of it is just … we’ve got to focus on ourselves. We need to move the puck quickly. That’s when we are at our best, when the puck is moving fast and we’re creating opportunities.”
Colorado is first in the NHL with 115 goals, 11 more than any other team. The Avs are also the toughest team to score on, allowing nine fewer than the next-best club.
The penalty kill is second, 0.1% behind league leaders Tampa Bay. The Avs have scored 98 even-strength goals, which is the most by any team through 29 games since the Los Angeles Kings had 117 in 1988-89.
Their goal differential (plus-52) is the third-best in the NHL since the franchise moved to Denver. Everything is going well … except the power play.
The team that has the Hart Trophy favorite (Nathan MacKinnon), the Norris Trophy favorite (Makar), Martin Necas, Valeri Nichushkin, Artturi Lehkonen, Gabe Landeskog … and multiple other players who could play on PP1 for other good teams, has scored 16 times on 100 power-play opportunities.
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“I can’t pinpoint it,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “If I could, we’d have changed it already. We’re on our third different set of personnel, and I think it’s a matter of time before it clicks. But, they’re all going to have to get on the same page and sort of take ownership of it as a group of five.
“If it continues to struggle, we’ll probably see a fourth personnel change.”
MacKinnon, Makar and Necas have been the constants. The first PP1 of the season included Lehkonen and Brock Nelson. The second swapped those two out for Nichushkin and Victor Olofsson. The third iteration has replaced that pair with Landeskog and Lehkonen.
The raw data suggests it should be better. Colorado has the third-most shot attempts on the power play this season (308). It has the most shots on goal (162). The Avs are one of only five teams shooting worse than 10% with the man advantage.
But that doesn’t show the full picture. The Avs, in part because they dominate possession of the puck at 5-on-5, earn a lot of power plays. And because they aren’t scoring very often, there’s more time to shoot.
The per-60 minute rate stats are a better indication of what’s going on under the hood. Colorado is 11th in the NHL in shot attempts per 60 minutes. That’s OK, but the standard is higher with this roster.
The Avs are eighth in shots on goal per 60 minutes. That’s a little better.
Here’s where the alarm bells go off: The Avs are 29th in scoring chances per 60 minutes, per Natural Stat Trick. High-danger shot attempts? Colorado is dead last, 32nd in the NHL.
Every shot from MacKinnon or Makar with traffic in front is a good decision on the power play. If the Avs whip the puck around and get a one-timer from the perimeter with the penalty killers unsettled, that’s also a great shot.
But the Avs just aren’t getting enough from inside the shell of the defense, whether it is teams trying to take away the one-timer from the high slot that MacKinnon loves to set up, or from rebounds and deflections around the net.
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“The things we’re talking about, the repeatable things – it’s work ethic, it’s execution, it’s about an attack mentality and not looking for something that’s perfect,” Bednar said. “It’s getting in attack mode and putting pucks and traffic to the net.
“I think all those things are repeatable. It’s just executing every time we get a chance.”
The Avs did all of those things for one power-play opportunity Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia, and the result was a critical goal in a 3-2 win. For nearly two minutes, the Avs pinged the puck around the offensive zone.
They shot the puck seven times, including three on net and one off the crossbar, before the eighth try was poked across the goal line by Nelson. If the Avs can replicate some of what happened on that power play moving forward, it’s going to be more successful.
And if this Avalanche team, which looks historically great at even strength and one of the league’s best on the penalty kill, can figure out the one thing that looks like it should come easy — the power play — then good luck to the other 31 clubs.
“I just can’t tell you anything except that we know we’re going to continue to get better,” Landeskog said. “It’s an area that we have to improve, no doubt, and we are aware of it. But there’s no reason to panic. We’re a really good hockey team. We’ve got a lot of good players on our power play. I think it’s just a matter of time before things really start clicking.
“It’s not something I lose sleep over right now. We’re just riding the waves of the ups and downs and we’re trying to find solutions to get better. That’s all you can really do.”
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