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Colorado Avalanche: What 3-on-3 OT Should Look Like

By Nadia Archuleta

Jan 22, 2016; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Avalanche center Carl Soderberg (34) attempts to score on St. Louis Blues goalie Brian Elliott (1) in a over time period at Pepsi Center. The Avalanche defeated the Blues 2-1 in a shootout. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
Jan 22, 2016; Denver, CO, USA; Colorado Avalanche center Carl Soderberg (34) attempts to score on St. Louis Blues goalie Brian Elliott (1) in a over time period at Pepsi Center. The Avalanche defeated the Blues 2-1 in a shootout. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Colorado Avalanche have gone into overtime six times this season. The team needs to become more dominant on the new 3-on-3 format.

The Colorado Avalanche is a run and gun team — they have speed and firepower. The new 3-on-3 overtime format should be a natural for them because there’s so much wide open space. It is not.

Colorado has gone into six overtimes this season. They won two in OT, once against the Minnesota Wild and once against the St. Louis Blues. They also took one to the shootout and beat the St. Louis Blues again. The other three were losses.

The thing about 3-on-3 overtime is that you can only run and gun if you have possession of the puck. And that’s the problem — the Colorado Avalanche is not strong on puck possession.

The other big key, though, is speed. Teams need a lot of speed to get across all that ice and beat opponents. And that, at least, favors the Avalanche.

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So, to address the first issue, Colorado is never going to be a strong puck possession team. Even head coach Patrick Roy talks about how the team’s offense is based more on the rush that comes after exploiting an opponent turnover.

That said, the Avalanche have some gifted stick handlers in the likes of Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie. These are players who should be able to deke and dangle with all that open ice.

Another helpful aspect for the 3-on-3 overtime is a player who can also protect the puck. Duchene is good in this aspect, too. Erik Johnson is excellent at staying strong on the puck.

During his AvsCast on the Colorado Avalanche website, Matt Duchene talked about the shooting strategy for 3-on-3 overtime:

"“Unless you have a 2-on-1 or a breakaway, don’t shoot. Unless you’re wide open, ladies’ Ts, hold it, kick it back to the goalie and change. Changing is tough.”"

While I’m not entirely certain where the ladies’ Ts comment comes from, Duchene makes an excellent point, of course. Players want to avoid a turnover. So, when they have possession of the puck, they don’t want to just throw pucks at the net. It’s far more important to only shoot when the player has a clear look at the net.

Duchene also alludes to an essential strategy for 3-on-3 overtime — players absolutely cannot stay out on the ice too long. There are no heroes in trying to tough it out on the ice. Instead, with all that skating, players fall pray to fatigue very quickly.

And fatigue leads to mistakes. Players get gassed, and they just can’t compete. We saw that in the first tilt the Colorado Avalanche had at the new overtime:

Gabriel Landeskog has been on the ice a long time, and he just doesn’t have it in him to prevent Carolina Hurricanes skater Victor Rask’s goal.

Finally, the Colorado Avalanche have to minimize their mistakes. They have been so bad at making critical errors at exactly the wrong time. This has got to stop — especially during 3-on-3 overtime when every mistake is magnified.

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The Colorado Avalanche do have it in them to succeed in this new format, as we saw against St. Louis:

And against the Minnesota Wild:

So, next time the Colorado Avalanche get a chance for the 3-on-3 overtime, it’s essential that they keep their speed but work on puck possession. They have to shorten their shifts and only shoot when they have a clear look. And stop making mistakes.

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