Colorado Avalanche Need to Play some Heavy Hockey

At the midway point of the season, the Colorado Avalanche need to tweak their rebuild — in this case by adding some further dimension to their play.

Today, the Colorado Avalanche and I conveniently have the day off of work. The Avs players are enjoying their first day off since the Christmas break — though “enjoying” might be a strong word considering the current six-game losing streak they’re on.

Today is my second day off since the Christmas break, and the first was New Year’s Day and that didn’t count. And “enjoy” is a strong word, except I do strangely enjoy dissecting what’s going on with the Avs right now.

Yesterday’s loss against the San Jose Sharks marked the halfway point of the season. Bloggers, sports writers, etc. historically write how they think the team is doing and what needs to happen for success.

I decided to be a little extra, because of the day off and all, and turn this post into a three-article state-of-the-team event.

For the first post, I got a little pragmatic about what the team is doing right now. Read it here:

However, it all comes down to the fact that the Colorado Avalanche are still in rebuild mode. That’s ok, though, because the team is mostly comprised of young talent.

Well, something that must happen for any rebuild to be successful — any season really — is the team must build its identity. Colorado needs some help with that right now.

Colorado Avalanche Brand of Hockey

The Avalanche are a team built solely around speed and skill. Per GM Joe Sakic, the team has steadily gotten younger, as you’d expect in a rebuild. However, they’ve also steadily gotten smaller — with an eye toward that speed and skill.

That’s the future of the modern NHL, right? Yeah, no. It really shouldn’t be any surprise that one-dimensional teams fail to find success.

Granted, Colorado has added a little dimension to that speed-skill formula. Coach Jared Bednar has his insistence on conditioning. Essentially, he wants his players to be within a certain elite conditioning range — ideally, they should be the best-conditioned athletes on the ice at any given time.

Theoretically, that insistence on conditioning should work. Such conditioning should affect their stamina. It should be an especial boon at home, where the players are used to playing at an altitude that the other teams are not.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite working out for the team. I’m guessing the strategies exist for the players to implement that superior conditioning, but, as I noted in the previous post, they’re not playing disciplined enough hockey. When the time comes to fiendishly implement their superior conditioning at altitude, they’re often too busy buzzing around trying to catch up from behind.

Bednar would like them to focus on mental toughness, too, to avoid that last-minute buzzing. Beyond mixing up lines and periodically benching players not named Gabriel Bourque, I don’t know what he’s doing to that end.

But you can see, for the most part the Avs are a one-dimensional team built around speed and skill. And opponents have figured them out.

The Need for Speed Heaviness

The Colorado Avalanche need to trust in the process of the rebuild, including evolving their identity. They need to add dimensions to their play.

The St. Louis Blues were the first to find the solution to the Colorado Avalanche — heavy, physical hockey. They implemented those findings on November 30. And, despite being the inferior team, they used that strategy to beat the Avs. It took to overtime, but the lowly Blues did it.

And teams have been implementing those strategies ever since. When they can slow down the hockey, especially if they suffocate the top line, they often win. Tampa Bay, Edmonton, St. Louis again, New York Islanders, Chicago, Arizona, LA, San Jose. All just in one month (plus San Jose).

So, the Avs need to get heavy themselves. As we’ve seen, just having a bunch of speedsters leads to teams playing heavy hockey and stopping them. The Avalanche need to have an edge.

More from Mile High Sticking

We’ve lost that edge recently with the injury to Nikita Zadorov. However, you can’t put all your eggs in that one basket.

Honestly, I don’t mind seeing the rough stuff from J.T. Compher either. Also, if Patrik Nemeth wants to stay in the lineup, he should work more on that aspect of his game. He’s big enough.

What we don’t want to see, though, is players like star Nathan MacKinnon, captain Gabriel Landeskog and alternate Erik Johnson taking on those roles too much themselves.

Colorado needs to give another chance to a player like AJ Greer who’s apparently quite an instigator and who can score. They also need to see which of the rookies, none of whom are stars, are willing to take on that edge to their game. Ryan Graves? Logan O’Connor? Sheldon Dries?

The Patrick Bordeleaus and Cody McLeods of the world were never bad hockey players. They weren’t even good hockey players — they were great hockey players who lacked just a tiny bit of elite skill to be day-in and day-out NHLers. So, they developed that other aspect to their game.

Go on, howl about no need for goons in the modern NHL. Tell Stanley Cup champion Alex Ovechkin (and his enforcer Tom Wilson) and Stanley Cup finalist Jonathan Marchessault (and his enforcer Ryan Reaves) all about how that’s not the way the game is played anymore.

Or tell Nathan MacKinnon, who’s watching the playoffs slip away despite his elite speed and skill, about how there’s no need for rough play in today’s NHL. I’m sure he can point to some bruises on his body that say otherwise.

The Colorado Avalanche need to develop more facets to their team identity. That includes introducing some heaviness to their game.

They also need to tighten up their hockey again — game management would be an ultra-useful tool to teach the youngsters. Otherwise, their hot start will waste away in the cold grind of winter.