Colorado Avalanche Need to Practice Overtime Strategies

The Colorado Avalanche need to work on their overtime strategies so they can win more points that they’ve thus far just left on the ice.

The Colorado Avalanche have not won in overtime yet this season. They have been in games that have gone to overtime four times this season, including the shootout loss to the Rangers, and they have yet to win one of those games.

That may not seem important until you remember Colorado plays in the impossible Central Division. That’s four points they’ve left on the ice. Those four points would put them at 60, which would put them third in the Central instead of fifth in the Central and eighth in the Western — ergo, Wild Card Two.

Those points are going to be important come, say early March when the Avalanche have to go into another gear to hopefully make a playoff run. So, while I don’t think the Colorado Avalanche need to dedicate endless practice on three-on-three hockey, I think they need to start working it more heavily into their rotation of drills.

Defensive Hockey

If a shooter gets the puck and goes on the breakaway, he’s going to score. It doesn’t happen every time, but it’s what lost the overtime for the Avalanche against the Calgary Flames:

Unfortunately, Erik Johnson had pinched in, which would be fine considering Samuel Girard was still back. However, they had lost sight of Johnny Gaudreau, who received the pass behind Girard and, boom, breakaway.

There’s different schools of thought on how to handle such situations. Some sites recommend designating a stay-at-home defenseman. Others recommend playing man-on-man defense instead of zone. I think when you’re a skating team like the Avalanche, the latter makes more sense. If Girard had been playing the man (Gaudreau) instead of his zone, he probably would have stopped the Flames forward.

After all, our new beefcake Girard  has an inch and about 20 to 25 pounds on the diminutive Gaudreau.

Forechecking

Puck possession is everything on 3-on-3 hockey. There is so much ice that even a skater like Nathan MacKinnon isn’t going to catch a man on a breakaway, as we see in the video above. Therefore, as part of a new defensive strategy for overtime, the Colorado Avalanche need to work on their forechecking.

The key is to regain possession as quickly as possible. Naturally, the best place to do that is in your own offensive zone. You don’t always have that opportunity, but a solid forechecking game during 3-on-3 — or any configuration — would be worth spending some practice time.

Shooting

The general wisdom is that you should shoot a lot in 3-on-3 hockey. You don’t want to be giving up your puck possession, but the players have better lanes for shooting with all that available ice.

There’s really no reason the Colorado Avalanche can’t develop some set plays for 3-on-3 overtime the same way they have for the power play. They have the skaters, and they have the shooters — Avs hockey is based on high-octane offense. Why not give the players that tool for when the game is playing too fast for them to think?

What should not happen is what occurred in the New York Rangers game. The two teams played the entire five minutes of OT, but the Avalanche recorded only one shot on goal.

Discipline

You know what else is really hurting the Colorado Avalanche in overtime? Taking penalties. They’ve done it three times in their four games. Nathan MacKinnon got called for holding against the Rangers, Alexander Kerfoot for slashing against the Canucks, and the Ian Cole regulation penalty carried over against the Capitals.

Both the Capitals and the Canucks scored on their overtime (4-on-3) power play. The Rangers did not, but the penalty stole Colorado’s momentum.

This isn’t something the Avs really need to work on in practice — 4-on-3 doesn’t happen enough to make such drills useful, I don’t think. However, they need to maintain their discipline both with tied games (Cole) and during overtime itself.

Roster Decisions

I flat out don’t like the way coach Jared Bednar formulates his 3-on-3 overtime lines. The information above is freely available at SchoolyardPuck.com, among other sites. I’m willing to bet you can even watch some film and get some tips from teams who successfully navigate 3-on-3 overtime. And you can build your OT lines accordingly. Bednar has not.

For example, in the game against the Washington Capitals, Bednar sent out Erik Johnson with Patrik Nemeth and Gabriel Bourque to face the Caps’ overtime power play line. Nemeth and Bourque are both players who have been scratched at times throughout the season because their play hasn’t been as good as others’. They’re scrubs.

On what planet do two scrubs get sent out with your best defenseman to face one of the most potent shooters — and the reigning Stanley Cup champ — in hockey? (Alex Ovechkin) How are they the first two guys you tap for this situation? Neither is known for his skating or shooting prowess, or even forechecking. They’re both good at defense, which makes them great penalty killers in regulation. Not during overtime!

Johnson makes sense — he’s an elite two-way player. Almost any other player not also on the fourth line or third pairing would have been better than those two choices. Here are some of my favorites for that start:

• Carl Soderberg (two-way)
• Gabriel Landeskog (elite two-way, power forward)
• Tyson Jost (forechecker)
• Matt Calvert (forechecker)
• Mark Barberio (puck-mover)

Overtime is the same as the start of the game or the period — you start your best players. Nemeth and Bourque aren’t even your best penalty killers.

If the team dedicated some practice time to 3-on-3 overtime, Bednar could get these bugs worked out ahead of time. He could see which lines work well for that situation and roll them out accordingly.

Also, Bednar needs to get over his prejudice against Nikita Zadorov. I know the Russian might have a bigger personality than Bednar is comfortable with, and he’s somehow translating that as a poor work ethic. But Zadorov is supposed to be part of the future of our blueline. The fact that we had Nemeth instead of Zadorov (healthy scratch) to start in that 3-on-3 was a big part of the problem to begin with.

No telling when the next overtime challenge will be for the Colorado Avalanche. However, the team does need to dedicate a little practice time to winning these battles — because they can ultimately lead to winning more points.