Aarif Deen
DENVER — Do the Avalanche lack talent? Of course. With the long list of injuries –more than $27 million missing from the lineup — head coach Jared Bednar and his club have their work cut out for them. But something doesn’t add up. The Avalanche have dealt with injuries in past seasons and usually find a way to overcome them — or at least stay afloat until they get the cavalry back. What’s different this time?
“We’re lacking the urgency for whatever reason, to start the game,” forward Logan O’Connor told me following Friday’s morning skate. “We’re probably not playing quite within our structure like we want to. But I think there are moments of it and flashes of it.”
Colorado is 0-4-0 to start the season for the first time in 26 years. But through these four games, two — or perhaps three — have been winnable. Against the Golden Knights on opening night, the Avs came out like the team we expect them to be. But as the game went on, Vegas wore them down and took advantage of shoddy goaltending from Alexandar Georgiev to come away with a victory. This was perhaps the second least winnable of the four games, but the Avalanche still had a chance.
In the home opener vs Columbus, goaltending again sank the Avs. And if you’re wondering why Bednar hasn’t yet started Justus Annunen, look no further than his relief appearance in the most winnable game they’ve had. Annunen came in with Colorado trailing 3-1 early in the second period. Before he even faced a shot, the Avs scored twice and tied the game at 3-3 with well over half a game to play. All the momentum was on their side, the home crowd was feeling it, and it felt like the Avs were back.
Fast forward to the third period — and Annunen had already let in a goal on his first shot against and two on the first five he faced against a less-than-stellar Blue Jackets lineup.
But then came the Islanders game — the one Colorado had no business winning. Patrick Roy’s club was better through it all, and the Avs’ top stars had a brutal showing. But against Boston, Colorado almost erased a three-goal deficit. Had it not been for a couple of missed opportunities to fire the puck, the game perhaps could’ve at least gone to OT. But in the final 25 minutes of that game, the Avs started to take control and looked like the team we had only seen flashes of, as O’Connor put it.
The third period against Boston could very well be the turning point to steer this ship back toward a playoff team.
“We dominated them. We had that urgency, we had that competitiveness,” O’Connor said of the final 20 minutes from Wednesday. “When we do have that urgency with our structure, regardless of who we have in the lineup, we’re going to be tough to play against and at least give ourselves a good shot every night.”
Colorado started to build chemistry in those final 20 or so minutes. Without Artturi Lehkonen or Valeri Nichushkin to start the year, the top six were already a bit of a crapshoot. But it wasn’t until Drouin’s injury in Vegas that the line shuffling truly began. At least before that, Bednar had a top line he used last year and could rely on. But that all changed, and the shifting of forwards began.
Ross Colton has been playing on the wing lately and seems to be a good fit there. At the end of the Bruins game, he was consistently lining up with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the first line. And to round out the top six, O’Connor was on the wing with Nikolai Kovalenko and centered, of course, by Casey Mittelstadt.
“That’s what we’re going to start with tonight and hopefully keep it,” Bednar said. “I liked both those lines, I mentioned the other night, the Mittelstadt line did a really nice job in the latter part of the game as they got together. And Colton and MacKinnon and Rantanen played really hard and were highly effective. So that’ll be our top six tonight.”
O’Connor, who started the season with Miles Wood and Colton on the third line, has already played with basically every forward. Having a bit of consistency will help, certainly when it comes to playing with urgency.
“Any positive is good for us right now, and that little stretch there is obviously a good one against a great team,” he said. “We watched video on that third period and what worked for us and what we could try and replicate tonight throughout the 60 minutes.
“But we have to be adaptable, especially through a stretch like this. We need everyone, every line working, and if two lines aren’t — even if the other two are, you might have to change things up in order to try and get everyone going. The last period, we were rolling three lines for a bit there and I definitely had some chemistry going with Mittsy and Kovy. Whoever you play with, just play within your role and your identity, and try and get the most out of each other.”