Colorado Avalanche: Why do They Cancel Practices?

The Colorado Avalanche held no practice the day after their overtime loss to the Florida Panthers. They last practiced five days ago.

The Colorado Avalanche didn’t hold a practice today. They lost in overtime yesterday, making their overtime record 1-12 this season (NHL-worst). They added a new member via trade who hasn’t even had a morning skate with his new teammates (though he impressed in his game debut).

Yet no practice today.

This isn’t the first time the Avalanche have failed to hold a practice after a disappointing loss. They did it several times throughout their two-month slump.

I get that the expectation is that players get a guaranteed four days off a month with no team responsibilities. However, it seems weird that those days keep coming after these losses during which the team didn’t perform up to snuff.

Naturally, one explanation might be that the team schedules those four days in advance and they just keep happening to come after these disappointing losses.

Mike Chambers of the Denver Post describes another possibility. The players are wearing heart-rate monitors during practices and morning skates. The monitors register players’ fatigue levels — if a player is fatigued, his heart rate won’t go down after he ceases an activity.

The Avalanche coaching staff is using that information to monitor how hard they should go in practices and determine when the players need a day off.

That’s nice.

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I thought the whole point of Jared Bednar’s system was to get his athletes in prime fitness for this time of year when they need it most. The players have a strict regimen they have to follow in the offseason to get themselves in their best shape possible. Their conditioning is tested at the beginning of the year.

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And now these elite athletes can’t endure 30 minutes of light practice to remind themselves of systems that are clearly breaking down? Because while the Avs, as do all NHL teams, have 90 minutes’ ice time guaranteed by the CBA, the last practice I attended was barely 30 minutes.

I don’t want to punish the players. And, for all I know, they’re not holding on-ice practice but are holding team meetings to review the systems and prepare for tomorrow’s game against the Vancouver Canucks.

It just seems weird that, at this crucial time when Colorado has committed to making a playoff push, they’re failing to hold on-ice practices.

Anyway, I guess I’m just supposed to trust in the organization. Maybe their heart rate monitors are telling the coaching staff to back off the fitness work for a while, or maybe they’re hearing rumblings from the players themselves.

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I guess we’ll see tomorrow. Presumably the Colorado Avalanche will be better-rested than the visiting Canucks, who, according to their Twitter, also did not practice today but had to travel.

The two teams are fighting for the same playoff spot, and it was Vancouver who knocked the Avalanche out of the bracket at the beginning of the month.

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