Avalanche power-play slump has lingered, but Jared Bednar remains unconcerned

When the Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers get together, there’s an overflow of offensive firepower available.

Four of the top six scorers in the NHL this year, including three of the last four players to win a Hart Trophy. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, the Avs are tied for first in the league with 1,230 goals. The other club? We’ll give you one guess.

It also usually means two of the deadliest power plays in the league. That hasn’t been the case this season, and it’s been particularly impotent of late for Colorado.

The Avs are 6 for 51 with the extra man over their past 17 games, and the power play hasn’t scored in the past five contests.

“Obviously (we need to) score more goals. How does that happen?” Avs defenseman Cale Makar said. “I think we’ve got to get back to the same mentality we had at the beginning of the year. I think we usually have it, but sometimes we are looking for things and they’re not there for us. For us, it’s just got to be that shift in mindset and make sure we’re getting it to the net whenever we can.”

Over the previous four seasons, the Oilers have the best power play in the NHL at 28.3%. The Avs were fifth in that span at 24.0%.

That’s the typical way special teams are measured in the NHL — proficiency. But Colorado has combined high-end proficiency with collecting more opportunities, and therefore more goals, than most clubs. Edmonton scored the most extra-man goals (262) over the previous four seasons. Colorado, with 246, had the second most.

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The recent dip in form has dropped the Avs all the way down to 17th in power-play proficiency, but Colorado still has the 10th-most goals. Edmonton’s work with the extra man is also down this season, by its own lofty standards. The Oilers are tied for 12th in goals with 27, two fewer than the Avs.

When the power play doesn’t score and gives up a shorthanded goal, like Colorado did two nights ago against the New York Rangers, it looks bad. Avs coach Jared Bednar called it the least of his worries, in part because he was seething at some of the performances by players he dubbed passengers that night.

A couple of days later, he’s still not overly concerned.

“I don’t see it as big of a negative as everyone makes it out to be,” Bednar said. “It’s like, ‘the power play is killing us.’ But really, it’s not. We are what, 9-2-1 in our last 12? It’s not killing us. It’s an issue that we’re trying to make as good as we can possibly can make it every night, but we are also finding other ways to win.

“You fix one thing, something else pops up. The power play (dip in form) has lasted a little bit too long. They have to figure it out and work it out. There has to be a little bit more pace and attack mentality with it. We’ve had some execution issues. I don’t know if they’re gripping it tight, but sometimes we’re not seeing it, either. We’ve got open guys on the ice and we’re not using them.”

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Bednar said he can count on one hand the number of games the Avs might have won with a power-play goal, and listed other ways the club has found to lose as well. This is the second five-game slump for the power play this season — Colorado has not gone six games without an extra-man tally.

While Makar, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen are always going to be staples of the top unit, the other two guys have changed routinely this season. Part of it has been injuries, but the Avs have at least five guys who can fill those two roles when everyone is healthy (six if captain Gabe Landeskog is included).

Valeri Nichushkin has been the club’s best net-front guy for multiple seasons, but he’s injured right now. Ross Colton was white-hot in the bumper spot earlier this season, but his play cooled off and he’s spent more time on PP2 since coming back from a broken foot.

Whether it’s those two guys, or some combination of Jonathan Drouin, Artturi Lehkonen and Casey Mittelstadt, the Avs have all the components for a lethal power play. MacKinnon is also one of the two best players in the world at entering the offensive zone with the puck (along with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid).

That has been a little less automatic at times during the past 17 games. Like the other parts of the power play, the Avs are confident better days are ahead.

“Every team plays it a little different. That break out is going to work nine times out of 10 if we execute it right,” Makar said. “I don’t know if it’s just a disconnect right now, but maybe a lack of communication at times as well. It’s an easy fix. It should be a really strong suit for us, and it will continue to be at some point.”

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