The holiday season is just around the corner, and the Colorado Avalanche keep on spreading holiday cheer through their fans. Thirty games into the season, things don’t look like they’re slowing down too much, and it might be a December to remember.

The burgundy and blue have had a successful and historic start to the season. As the halfway point approaches, there’s still plenty to examine about the squad.

The good

Colorado made history in this stretch of 10 games. They became the second team in NHL history to have only one regulation loss through the first 26 games. With a record of 21–2–7, the team still sits atop the Central Division and NHL standings.

Of course, a lot of that comes from the dominance of play at 5-on-5. They have some stupidly good numbers and metrics to back up their play. Goaltending also played a part in this stretch, as both Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood recorded shutouts. Three shutouts came in three consecutive games against the Nashville Predators, Chicago Blackhawks, and San Jose Sharks.

Depth has also played a good part in this run. Brock Nelson has stepped up his game, scoring eight points in the last 10 games. From the blue line, Sam Malinski has four points in the same stretch. Finally, captain Gabriel Landeskog has found himself in stride with eight points since the last edition of this series, more than doubling what he had before coming into December.

Other nice takeaways included another overtime win, thanks to a beauty by Nathan MacKinnon against the New York Rangers on December 6. Martin Necas has also chipped in and was involved in every goal at Madison Square Garden. Alongside convincing victories, Colorado discovered alternate paths toward victory, scoring points even on an imperfect evening.

The bad

7–1–2 was the record in this 10-game stretch. The two losses – including another regulation loss – weren’t pretty, however. Another loss beyond regulation came at the hands of the Minnesota Wild, proving how tight the Central Division is. The same can be said about the loss to the Nashville Predators. Overtime points are still points, but it’s still an issue they haven’t quite fixed yet fully.

The worst loss was against the New York Islanders in a 6–3 drubbing. Eventually, the fall back to Earth had to come for Colorado after getting points in 17 straight games. It was the first time they had fallen behind by four goals all season, and they didn’t have much of a response or fight to get back into it.

A slow start put them behind the eight ball in that game. It wasn’t the first time it had happened in this stretch of 10 games, but it hurt them there. It’s definitely something head coach Jared Bednar would like to nip in the bud before it becomes more of a consistent trend and hurts them more.

The ugly

A continuing trend in this category, however, is the power play. Finally, Nelson scored a man-advantage goal on the road against the Philadelphia Flyers. It might’ve been the best power play of the entire season in terms of puck movement and creating chances. But even then, the puck barely snuck in.


It was only one of five power-play goals in this stretch, going overall 5–for–27. Ultimately, it’s a better pace and percentage (18.51%) than earlier in the season. But it’s still lackluster overall, sitting in 24th at only 16%. It could’ve made a difference in swinging momentum in their favor in some games with a chance to go a perfect 10-0.

But overall, for the Avalanche, when there are fewer bad and ugly things there are to worry about, the better. Luckily, this season for them, there hasn’t been much to complain about. As December keeps rolling on and games become more frequent, time will tell if they can keep up the pace and keep on winning.