Colorado Avalanche Need To Stop Collapsing

The Colorado Avalanche play one of the most collapsed D zones in the NHL, packing everyone in down low to prevent close scoring chances for the opposition. But it’s not a sustainable way to win games against good hockey teams.

Since the Patrick Roy era began, the Colorado Avalanche have struggled with their shots allowed per game. They’ve consistently been near the bottom of the league in the stat while trying numerous different schemes to improve. This year the focus has been on blocking shots, which has resulted in the Avalanche leading the league in blocked shots.

But despite the Altitude commentators talking about blocking shots like it’s the greatest innovation to the game they’ve ever seen, the Avs are still second to last in the league in shots allowed per game (on net, we’re not going to even get into their Corsi numbers here.)

And they’ve been lucky in many aspects of the blocking shots — no one has gotten hurt yet, there haven’t been too many tipped shots in on net, and in general it seems to be somewhat working. But the reason that the Av’s mentality of blocking shots is working is the same thing that will cause them to fail against good teams.

When To Collapse

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Every team in hockey collapses occasionally. It’s the natural, and correct, response for when all hell breaks loose — protect the front of the net. So you’ll generally see it when there are scrambles for rebounds or when teams are pinned in their zone for long periods of times. Collapsing is for most teams the final stand, trying to pack it in down low when they don’t have the energy or correct positioning to challenge the entire defensive zone.

In the old days penalty kills were largely played with collapsed boxes or diamonds. This allows for more blocked shots, easier clearing of rebounds, and generally follows the guard from the net out rule.

The Colorado Avalanche Collapsing

However with the skill today’s players possess, it’s becoming a less viable strategy every year on the penalty kill. You simply can’t give players like Patrick Kane, Tyler Seguin, Nathan MacKinnon, etc; space and time on the ice. These guys can already slow the game down to make seemingly impossible plays — the last thing you want to do is give them even more time.

But that’s exactly what the Colorado Avalanche do on the penalty kill. I recently took my assistant coaches to the Wild-Avalanche game at the Excel center as a thank you, and they were astonished at how passive the Avs in-zone penalty kill was. Likewise, my father — who doesn’t watch much hockey nowadays — was blown away at the Stadium Series game with how passive the Avs are on the penalty kill.

And that’s just the penalty kill! Even during even strength play the Avs are terrible at covering the opposition’s points. They’ll collapse on a rebound, which is generally permissible, and then everyone just stays down low! Seriously watch the next Avs game and look for how many times you’ll see a winger down in the corner leaving his defenseman wide open.

Next: Is Eric Gelinas A Good Fit For The Avs

And now I’ll get to the point. Collapsing works well against bad teams. Heck if I was playing the Avalanche I would collapse like crazy and make Nick Holden or Andrew Bodnarchuk try and make a play from the blue line. But it won’t work against the solid teams that the Avalanche will have to face on their way to (and hopefully in) the playoffs.

Even against teams that don’t have astounding D, it’s so much space to work with. That space leads to the the Colorado Avalanche all trying to scramble high to cover the hole they left open, only to have to quickly 180 to get back down low.

So even though the collapsing structure works well against poor teams, the Avalanche need to play better positional hockey. And that means that the defense need to start winning the one on one battles down low so that the forwards are freed up to do their jobs.