The Colorado Avalanche played one of their ugliest games of the year against the LA Kings, but managed to come away with a win. They extend their home win streak to fourteen games, the second-longest in franchise history. They also remain the only team in the league with only two regulation losses. And check out this rather impressive stat from Corey Masisak of the Denver Post.

But make no mistake, this was one of the sloppiest Avalanche wins we’ve seen so far this season.

View from the Mountaintop

Depth scoring is always good to see, and some of last night’s scoring came from the bottom six. Jack Drury scored his sixth goal of the season, assisted by Ross Colton. And although Brock Nelson isn’t a bottom-six player, it was Joel Kiviranta who skated the puck down the ice and into the zone before passing it off to Nelson for his fifteenth goal of the year. It’s only Kiviranta’s fourth point this season.

Despite coming out ahead on the scoreboard against the Kings, the Avalanche looked slow and sloppy through much of the game. I had to double-check to reassure myself they weren’t coming off a back–to–back. Many of LA’s best opportunities came from careless turnovers in the neutral zone. The team needs to address the Avalanche’s abysmal power play.

The Avalanche had four opportunities on the power play and yet couldn’t convert on any of them. And to make matters worse, they allowed the Kings’ Joel Armia to score his seventh shorthanded goal of the year.

The goal cut the Avalanche’s lead to one early in the third period and swung the momentum in the Kings’ favor for most of the rest of the game. The Avalanche spent most of the third period struggling to take back control of the game. It wasn’t until MacKinnon’s empty-net goal at 18:23 of the third that fans could breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s almost inconceivable that a team with such a wealth of talent can be so horrible when given a man advantage. In post-game interviews, head coach Jared Bednar commented he was concerned about the power play’s lack of production.

“It’s been too long without us figuring it out, right? So there’s concern for sure. I still have lots of belief in it, though.”

What exactly does he have “lots of belief” in though? The current power play scheme, despite its lack of production? Or the players themselves? The latter explanation makes sense, but it doesn’t give much hope that he will make any changes.

Bednar also commented that the second power play unit had more promising chances than the first, prompting many to ask why he wouldn’t swap the two units. Is it only because he can’t imagine bumping MacKinnon down? He should consider it, though. In some ways, Nathan MacKinnon seems to be more of a detriment to the power play than an advantage as his primary contribution lately has been unfortunate turnovers.

Despite obvious frustration from fans, players, and coaches alike, there hasn’t been any sign so far that the team is ready to try something different. They seem determined to do the same thing over and over again and hope it magically starts working. On the bright side, this seems to be the Avalanche’s only weakness at the moment. There’s still plenty of time to fix it before the playoffs. But fix it, they must, if they hope to polish off this record-setting season with a Stanley Cup victory.

Up Next

The Avalanche will take on the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday at 7 p.m. MT. Altitude Sports will broadcast the game.