Some thoughts on what makes the Colorado Avalanche so successful
Happy Saturday, here are some thoughts on the NHL's best team so far.
This should have been one of the best times to play the Colorado Avalanche.
Colorado lost back-to-back games earlier this week, looked awful in both of them, and were playing the final game on a lengthy road trip — typically a trap game, even more so with a daytime game and players ready to get home to their own beds.
Instead the Avalanche routed the Detroit Red Wings 5-0 in Saturday’s matinee, improving to 36-8-9 and crossing 80-point threshold before the season even reached February.
The Avalanche still have single-digit regulation losses and if they were even league average at shootouts, they’d be even further above the pack.
While the Tampa Bay Lightning have certainly put themselves in the conversation as the NHL’s best the past couple months, it still very much is a gap between the Avalanche and everyone else.
But how wide is that gap?
That’s one of the questions I wanted to think about while watching Colorado play in person on Saturday afternoon, and it’s hard not to start the conversation with what Nathan MacKinnon is doing right now.
MacKinnon, as I’ve written before, is the closest thing for me to Mario Lemieux. He’s a ridiculous combination of size, speed, and skill. When he has the puck, you hold your breath, not out of feat, but excitement for what might happen next.
He already reached 91 points with his two goals and assist on Saturday, and his first-period goal to create space in the upper-slot and then find a shooting lane amidst chaos is one of the under-rated elements of his typically properly-rated game.
MacKinnon, to me, is the NHL’s MVP this season. He drives that group and he’s done the seemingly impossible of allowing Cale Makar to feel the time and space of a supporting player, where on any another team, Makar would have the burden and pressure carrying even more.
I’ve given my theory before — hockey is a weak-link sport in the regular season, your depth gets you to the postseason, but a strong-link sport in the playoffs where you need your best players to be your best players.
And with MacKinnon and Makar, the Avalanche have best strong-link combo in the league.
The other thing about Colorado, which I think really gets undersold, is how well the rest of the team understands the geographical part of the game. The Avalanche, even on the fourth line, value possession and cycling the puck. There’s a level of hidden nastiness — the Avalanche run pick plays better than anyone — and there’s more straight-line approach to creating shots off those board battles.
Not every team can or should play this way, but the Avalanche have an identity where they rely on the rush, but they also don’t force the rush with players incapable of flying up-and-down the ice.
There’s also some fluidness within in the Avalanche, particularly on the backend, where even on a day that Devon Toews was out, the defensive pairs didn’t matter. Makar played with Sam Malinksi and Samuel Girard and Josh Manson in different situations. There’s a heavy dosage of situational deployment — Girard and Makar on offensive face-offs, for example — and the team seems comfortable with that.
I would theorize part of that goes back to the normalcy and longevity behind the bench in Colorado. Jared Bednar has been allowed to build a culture in Denver, most coaches don’t actually get that chance, and while he’s leaned heavily on his stars, there’s been natural buy-in throughout the lineup.
Hockey is too randomized for any team to be a lock, but it’s also hard to look at the Western Conference right now and see any team bouncing the Avalanche before the Stanley Cup Final.
Anywho, just some food for thought. Enjoy the rest of your Saturday.