How Miles Wood Earned The Staff’s Trust To Kill Penalties (+)

When the Colorado Avalanche gave Miles Wood six years back on July 1, a lot of people were taken aback.

Six years for a bottom six forward who doesn’t play special teams? That’s a big commitment.

As it turns out, the Avalanche had plans to try Wood on the penalty kill all along, and get a little more value from the deal, but that was far from a slam dunk. While Wood had the skillset of a solid penalty killer, he had essentially no experience at the NHL level doing it.

Early on, it didn’t look good.

“Coming in, watching him early, we were like, ‘uhhh, you know, he’s got some work to do,'” Jared Bednar said with a chuckle.

Luckily for the Avalanche, he’s been a quick study.