The Colorado Avalanche have lost back-to-back games against the Dallas Stars in the first round of the 2024-25 Stanley Cup playoffs and they are in desperate need of a win on Saturday at Ball Arena. Though it was a night to remember in terms of the team’s captain, Gabriel Landeskog, returning to the ice after three seasons, the team still came out of the game with a 2-1 loss in overtime.
Despite allowing two goals, Mackenzie Blackwood was solid. He made 26 of 28 saves, while both teams headed to overtime, one goal apiece. The issues that appeared during the game were not that of Blackwood. A glaring issue was on special teams, with Colorado failing to capitalize on the power play six times. Going 0-for-6 on the power play is absolutely unacceptable. If something isn’t working, head coach Jared Bednar has to make a change early.
The Avalanche did last night what they’ve done far too often and it has also been brought up at length: They need to get their power play going. If you told me that the team had the eighth-best power play efficiency through the entire regular season, for me, that’s a surprise. However, it’s true. At eighth place, they capitalized on 24.8% of their power play opportunities.
As for the postseason, they have capitalized on just 15.4%, dead last of all 15 teams recorded. On the other side of special teams, the Avalanche have killed off 70% of their penalty kills through three games against Dallas.
If Jared Bednar fully commits to power plays in their team meetings and such and/or figures out different power play lines in the next two games, this team can win. They haven’t looked perfect, but neither have the Stars. Both teams bring a lot of physicality in their game and they’ve got to keep that up, but cannot forget the things that they don’t do well enough.
Colorado beat Dallas in Game 1 by a score of 5-1. They have to look at that game and realize that Dallas is beatable. You hear so many times from players how the little details are extremely important. The Avalanche cannot ever forget that fact. Get control of the puck, make the right reads, and shoot, shoot, shoot the puck. You know the saying, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take”? This is a great saying to go by in this situation. Colorado just seems like they’re a team who only shoots the puck when they have “the perfect” shot lined up.
To me, that’s a sign that they’re scared of making mistakes. Just shoot the puck and you might get a lucky bounce or rebound of some sort.
The opportunities are there to win all of these games. If they just clean up the power play, everything else can take care of itself.