The Colorado Avalanche came into Wednesday’s contest against the Los Angeles Kings looking for blood. One hot-button topic also coming into this season was the use of special teams. Last season the Avs had the best penalty kill, sitting at 84.6 percent overall. But the power play was a different story. Colorado finished 27th in the NHL at 17.1 percent. So the Avs needed to fix things coming into the 2026–27 season, and do it fast. Wednesday, the power play looked great, except for one issue does remain: shorthanded goals. Colorado gave up two of them. What went wrong and what do they need to do to fix their league-leading 13 shorthanded goals from last season?

What happened on the first shorthanded goal?

It was not one person’s fault. Especially Mackenzie Blackwood. You cannot blame the goalie in that situation when he was not prepared to be taking shots at all. It was more a series of mistakes that caused the shorthanded goals to happen. During the first goal, all the forwards became a little more aggressive and got too low into the offensive zone. The moment the puck bounced off T.J. Hughes’ stick, it opened up a clearing for the Kings to run with the puck. The pass from Nathan MacKinnon to Hughes had to be perfect, or it would not work. It could have been too hard, or Hughes could have had his blade too open (allowing the puck to bounce).

The second goal

On the second goal, it was pure panic when they entered the offensive zone. Colorado lost possession for a brief second, and the Kings saw their chance. They jumped on the forecheck and collapsed the neutral zone, leaving no space to maneuver. Mikey Anderson stole the puck and just made a simple pass up to Trevor Moore to finish it.

Colorado needs to manage how aggressive it is when they go low in the zone. They also need to keep their heads up when going through the neutral zone. Colorado did score four power play goals on Wednesday, but they allowed two shorthanded goals in the process. So is the price worth it?