On January 16, I published an article asking whether the wheels had come off the bus for the Colorado Eagles. Now, two months later, we have a straightforward answer: YES, they have. This team is in trouble.
Win/Loss record
The Eagles have an overall record of 36–16–5–5, which doesn’t look too bad on paper. They currently have a rather precarious hold on second place in the Pacific Division, with the Ontario Reign (LAK) three points ahead of them and the San Jose Barracuda (SJS) only two points behind. For a complete view of why I believe “the wheels have come off,” consider the season’s first half statistics compared to the second half.
From the start of the season through December 31, 2025, the Eagles had a record of 20–6–0–1, which is a win percentage of 74.0%. Impressive, right? But in the weeks since January 1, the Eagles have a record of 16–10–5–4, which is a win percentage of only 45.7%. They’ve suffered several losses against teams near the bottom, including the Abbotsford Canucks (VAN). That’s definitely not going to cut it against the best teams when the playoffs arrive.
In my last article, I detailed the Eagles’ trend of gaining leads but then giving up goals late in the third, resulting in games going to overtime. That continues to be a problem. To make matters worse, their overtime record is abysmal. In the twelve games that have gone beyond regulation since January 1, the Eagles have only won one of them in overtime. They won an additional two in shootouts. The other nine were all losses — five in overtime and four in shootouts.
Tye Felhaber against the Gulls. (Photo courtesy of Colorado Eagles.)
Special Teams
After starting off the season ranked in the top three for both power play and penalty kill, the special teams have mostly returned to the mean. The Eagles currently rank ninth in the AHL for the power play, at 20.3 percent. But buried in those stats is an odd phenomenon. When looking at home games only, the Eagles’ power play ranks first in the league at 26.7 percent. It’s their power play on the road that pulls their average way down. When playing away from Blue Arena, the Eagles come in 13th in the AHL at only 13 percent. Can the noise of the home crowd really be the only explanation? Is that enough of a difference to go from first place to nearly last place in the league? It seems unlikely to me that crowd noise could matter that much to professional players, but I don’t have a better explanation to offer.
On the penalty kill, the Eagles rank fifteenth in the league at 81.9 percent. But since January 1, that number has fallen to 77.5 percent, which would put them all the way at 29th in the league based on current rankings. It’s worth noting that the Eagles found themselves short-handed more often than all teams except three in the league. These past few months, they committed numerous costly penalties. And several of those penalties have directly resulted in game-tying or game-winning goals for the other team.
Other random but fun stats
Enough of the negative! I’ve said before how much I love combing through huge stat sheets. (Wish the AHL had more to offer in that regard. Time on ice, please? Man, I’d love to see that.) Anyway. These are some miscellaneous details I discovered.
— Jack Ahcan has arguably made himself the backbone of this team. Among defensemen, he’s ranked second in the league in points, third in assists, and fifth in power-play points. He’s ranked third overall on the team in both points and assists. He’s also second on the team in power-play assists, behind only TJ Tynan.
Completely random tangent: I was the Avalanche game for Ahcan’s first call-up. The man next to me asked, “Who’s that wee lad on the blue line?” And that will forever be how I think of Ahcan now. “Wee lad” or not, his importance on the Eagles cannot be overstated. (Photo courtesy of Colorado Eagles.)
— Speaking of Tynan, he’s currently on a seven-game point streak, having racked up nine assists in that time. He also leads the team in assists.
— Alex Barré-Boulet ranks third in the league in overall points with 23 goals and 41 assists. For the Eagles, he ranks second in assists, one apple behind Tynan.
— Only one player in the league (Ben Berard of Abbotsford) has scored more shootout goals than Ivan Ivan.
— Taylor Makar has the dubious honor of having the fourth most minor penalties in the league among rookies. But don’t let that fool you. His game continues to show noticeable improvement. He’s scored four goals and three assists in his last five matches. (He and Ivan are similar in that when they’re playing their best game and racking up points, they also tend to rack up PIMs.)
Taylor Makar playing against Coachella Valley. (Photo courtesy of Colorado Eagles.)
Conclusion
On paper, this team has everything it needs to keep winning games like it did in the first half of the season. But anybody watching them can see there’s something missing. It’s that weird, intangible “it” that drives players to push through the noise, to find that next level of effort, to take the game into chaos mode when they fall behind.
We don’t have a name for it (as far as I know), but we all know it when we see it. Think of the times Nathan MacKinnon has suddenly shifted into high gear, putting the team on his back and forcing a victory. Or back in 2022 in the Stanley Cup playoffs, when Nazem Kadri scored a hat trick in front of the most hostile crowd imaginable in Game Four against the St. Louis Blues. It’s that extra edge the Colorado Avalanche lose when Gabe Landeskog is gone, but can magically find again when he returns.
Oomph. Pizzazz. “Guts all over the place.” Finish. Whatever name you give it, it’s missing from this team.
I hope like crazy they find it before the playoffs roll around.
