The Colorado Avalanche rolled into the holiday break with its best run of results, but it remains a hard team to place in the NHL’s hierarchy.
Colorado won seven of its final nine games before the break. A bold move to swap out both goaltenders has paid clear and immediate dividends.
But, it’s hard to say the Avs have looked like a team that expects to win 16 playoff games in the spring very often this season, even during the recent run. Colorado has survived an early-season injury/availability crisis and could be in position to make a second-half move upward in the Western Conference standings.
It also feels like, outside of one game in New Jersey and a few stretches here and there, this team hasn’t come close to reaching its peak form yet.
“We’re still an evolving team,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I don’t want to say everything is fixed. We have work to do.”
With that in mind, here are some reasons for optimism that the recent good form portends a larger surge, and some concerns that could get in the way of a charge towards a second championship in four years.
Reasons for optimism
1. The Big Three
This is an obvious one, but in a season full of inconsistent play and patchwork lineups, Colorado’s superstars have superstar’d.
Nathan MacKinnon leads the NHL with 57 points, even with some unlucky finishing, and could make a run at his first Art Ross Trophy a year after collecting his first Hart Trophy. He’s five points better than two guys, including teammate Mikko Rantanen.
Cale Makar is also the points leader among defensemen with 45, three more than Quinn Hughes. He’s on pace for 102.5 points — he could be the second defenseman to hit triple digits in the past 33 years.
It’s also worth noting in a season where the Avs have played at times without five of their 10 best players, the top three have all played in every game.
2. The goaltending
The new guys in net have made quite the impact. Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood have combined to make 10 appearances for the Avs. Blackwood has allowed eight goals in four starts and is sporting a .931 save percentage since the trade.
Wedgewood has played for Colorado six times, yielded 11 goals (including zero twice), and has a .932 save percentage. The Avs were 30th in the NHL in goals allowed per game on Dec. 2, the day before Wedgewood relieved Alexandar Georgiev in Buffalo. They are eighth since the day after Wedgewood helped rally them past the Sabres.
“This team is pretty dangerous,” Blackwood said. “So I know that if you give them a chance to be in the game, you know you have a chance to win every night. It’s pretty fun to watch.”
3. The penalty kill
Colorado lost a few key penalty killers from last season, and two big ones weren’t available to start this season. Toss in some poor goaltending, and the PK was a mess. Now, it is not.
Bednar didn’t want to single out the previous goalies, but the Avs were 28th in save percentage while shorthanded on Dec. 2, and are sixth since. Parker Kelly has become a fixture, replacing Andrew Cogliano, and getting both Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen back has definitely helped. But, as Bednar has pointed out, the analytics were pretty good earlier in the year. The PK is just getting more saves now.
4. Wing depth
The Avs didn’t have a splashy offseason, but the lineup shuffling helped Colorado find a potentially intriguing addition — Ross Colton, on the wing. He spent his first season in Denver as the club’s No. 3 center. But with Nichushkin, Lehkonen and Jonathan Drouin missing, Colton shifted over and up in the lineup.
He’s also missed half the season because of a broken foot, but Colton has 10 goals in 19 games, including as many (four) on the power play as Nichushkin and Lehkonen combined. Joel Kiviranta has taken advantage of an increased role and also has 10 goals, a career high.
If the Avs actually get healthy and still keep Colton on the wing, they’ll be the deepest team in the NHL on the flanks.
Reasons for concern
1. Maybe it wasn’t just the goalies
The Avs have won 16 of the past 24 games. That’s a 109-point pace over a full season. They have only a plus-12 goal differential in that span, and they’re only 14th in the league since Nov. 5 in expected goals for percentage at 5-on-5 (50.91%).
Even if we cut it down to since Wedgewood arrived, using the idea that the other guys had lost confidence in Georgiev and it was affecting their play … the Avs are actually worse. They’re 22nd in xGF%, barely above 48%. That’s a small sample size, and maybe the newfound confidence with two new goalies, plus a couple more healthy bodies, will manifest in better play in the coming weeks.
It’s nice to be able to say the Avs can now out-gun and out-goalie teams, but they still need to play better in front of the netminder. Individually, three key figures have bad underlying numbers. One is Nichushkin, who still has 11 in 19 minutes but has not been the two-way force of the past few seasons since returning from his suspension.
The other two are …
2. Need more from Mittelstadt
Casey Mittelstadt was an immediate fit with the Avs after the trade deadline a year ago and started this season with six goals 13 points in his first 10 games. A fully healthy Avalanche team, with that version of Mittelstadt as the No. 2 center, is a Stanley Cup contender.
Mittelstadt hasn’t been that guy for a while. He had seven goals and 18 points through 19 games. He has zero goals and five points in the 17 games since, and the underlying numbers are bad. He didn’t have great wings to play early in the season. He does now, and that hasn’t changed.
Mittelstadt’s always been a pass-first guy, but he has just seven shots on goal in 17 contests. That’s one fewer than defenseman Keaton Middleton, who has played in nine games. Among the 283 forwards who have played 15-plus games since Mittelstadt’s last goal, he’s 282nd in shots on goal.
3. What to make of Manson’s start?
Josh Manson hasn’t played since Nov. 29 because of a hand/wrist injury. The Avs have 27 games until the trade deadline, and it would be quite helpful to see him back before the front office has to decide which alterations to make ahead of March 7.
Manson, like Nichushkin and Mittelstadt, has a sub-44% expected goals for percentage at 5-on-5. He and Samuel Girard had a rough start to the season together, but the goaltending was part of it. Girard’s numbers have been better with Sam Malinski and Cale Makar.
Where does Manson fit when he returns? Could he and Devon Toews work together if Girard plays with Makar? Will he and Girard just play better together, like they did for much of last season?
It’s a big question, which leads to …
4. What can the Avs do before the deadline?
There are a lot of moving parts, and the Avs have had very little time with anything close to a healthy roster to try and self-evaluate. There’s been no clarity, at least publicly, on what’s going on with captain Gabe Landeskog. His return could be great for the team but would complicate the salary cap situation.
If neither Landeskog nor Miles Wood returns, the Avs have about $5.4 million in cap space, per Cap Wages. Wood’s return would remove $2.5 million. The Avs have also already used a lot of assets in other trades.
That said, if Colton sticks on the wing, should Colorado look for another No. 3/4 center? Kelly has improved with more time at the position, but the Avs could start the playoffs with a first-year center (Kelly) and a rookie (Ivan Ivan) in the middle.
Should the Avs look to add to the defense corps? Manson’s play when he returns could be a big factor.
The depth looked much improved before the season, but Erik Brannstrom was traded and Oliver Kylington’s injury timeline has gone from day-to-day to week-to-week to getting lumped in with other long-term injuries (like Wood and Landeskog).
Given all the uncertainty, it might need to be a quieter deadline than usual for the Avs, but even a depth addition or two could be a big boost for a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.
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