The Colorado Avalanche are great. Their power play is very bad. That these two facts persist in the same season makes about as much sense as the concept of blue cheese flavored toothpaste. Avalanche fans are blessed to root for a roster packed with world class talent. Colorado is sending eight Olympians to Italy, which I believe ties them for third most in the National Hockey League.
Amid a scorching hot start to the 2025-26 campaign. the struggles on the power play once felt like a minor concern. Most observers felt that the club would surely right the ship on the man-advantage. Sadly, as of today, they sit at the very bottom of the league in power play percentage.
The Avalanche have converted on just 15.1% of their PP chances. This includes an igloo-dwelling cold streak of 21-straight missed opportunities. Something has got to change.
My fellow MHS contributor, Katie Bartlett, wrote about the need for a major shakeup of the power play units. Everyone in the fandom remembers how last season ended in heartbreak. So much of Colorado's demise in 2024-2025 rested with power play problems.
Offensive assistant Ray Bennett was fired and replaced with Dave Hakstol. A coach who, if we're honest, was not known for power play related excellence. Conor Lively wrote a very insightful piece on Hakstol and his skill-set. Even here at a fan-centric outlet for the Colorado Avalanche, we should be able to admit this hire has gone haywire.
The blame isn't all on coaching, of course. The personnel on the ice have to adapt and execute at the end of the day. Nathan MacKinnon is leading the NHL with 40 goals and is still the engine that should make the power play run like a high-performance sports car. Instead, the Avalanche’s man-advantage is more akin to a broken-down Pinto smoking on the side of the road.
We know this team is not about to part ways with the most gifted offensive talent in franchise history, nor should they. But do we know that about Dave Hakstol?
To be completely frank, Hakstol's future with Colorado feels totally uncertain. They aren't normally the kind of organization who would make such a drastic move within their coaching staff mid-season and as much as fans might be clamoring for a move, I'd put the chances on a firing low, right now.
The Avalanche power play is so pitiful that I'm ready to predict at the very least, Hakstol will not be back next season. At this point, even Colorado raising a Stanley Cup should not necessarily guarantee his retention on staff.
Much of my personal consternation on the this dilemma comes from what could have been. Even though hindsight is always 20/20 and being this wistful hurts my heart, I thought I would spend the first day of the break re-visiting this hire and assessing some calls that could have been made.
The Outside Longshot: Alex Tanguay
This counts as the biggest longshot because Alex Tanguay was and still is employed by the Detroit Red Wings. You might remember that I wrote about Tanguay in the summer when I made the case for him as an overlooked Hall of Fame candidate.
My appreciation of the former Stanley Cup champion is well documented. Seeing him behind the bench for Colorado's most bitter rival of old has always been jarring. Tanguay has had the position since 2021, but the recent home-and-away series against Detroit drew that pipe dream of bringing Tanguay home into sharp focus.
The Avalanche and Red Wings split the Saturday and Monday matchups with two improbable dueling shutouts. Luckily, the Red Wings power play was not the difference in the Monday loss. If it had been, I might have gotten in trouble for egging the closed down Little Caesars pizza here in town. Don't worry, I wouldn't vandalize the actual Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
I did, however, note that Tanguay is indeed in charge of the Red Wings power play. A power play I would add that currently sits 9th best in the NHL at 23.1%. One thing I couldn't help but observe was that Detroit looked to consistently run two PP units with split time as close to a minute each as they could manage.
Even when things aren't working how you envision, some commitment to structure could help. This is something Tanguay saw first-hand when he was playing. Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg each headed up units that pushed each other to be better.
Could the Avalanche have swooped in to bring an old fan favorite back into the fold? Unfortunately we will never know. It's actually entirely possible that they were busy courting candidates for weeks.
The Internal Options
If poaching an ex-Avalanche forward wouldn't have worked, it should be understood they still had an intriguing candidate in the house already. I'm speaking of Dan Hinote.
Hinote, like Tanguay, shares championship pedigree from the 2001 Colorado Avalanche roster. He would have been a surprise choice perhaps, because he was only back coaching in the Colorado system for one season. But by all accounts, the experience was good.
As an assistant with the Colorado Eagles, Hinote helped them to a fantastic regular season where they finished first in the AHL's Western Conference. In his playing career, Hinote was a grit and guts guy. He was a key penalty killer for Colorado. At first glance, that might not be everyone's first pick for a power play-focused coach. But in studying how to stop the man-advantage, you also learn what can make it unstoppable.
Maybe the sample size was small, but the results were worthy of a promotion. Hinote earned a promotion outside of Colorado when the Tampa Bay Lightning tapped him for an assistant job in early June.
For reference, Tampa Bay currently has the 12th ranked power play with a successful conversion rate of 22.4%. Not quite a powerhouse, but still a special teams unit that does its job well, and one you should always consider dangerous.
Finally, we come to the coach who was most well-situated to take the job. He might be a name less fans know because of his extended stay in the the lower levels of pro hockey, but Aaron Schneekloth outright deserved that job in my opinion.
Schneekloth paid his dues in Colorado's system. He was the Colorado Eagles in many ways. As a player, and then as a coach, he spent 19 years with Colorado. Seven of those years were on the ice, while 12 were behind the bench.
Schneekloth was a standout player at lower-levels who exited his playing career as the Eagles’ all-time leader in points (356), goals (111), and assists (245) by a defenseman. He was a guy who proved incredibly loyal to Colorado, organizationally speaking.
In fact, in his first stint as a head coach, he won back-to-back Kelly Cups with the Eagles when they were still in the ECHL. This was way back in 2017 and 2018. Schneekloth stayed with the club when they jumped to the AHL and graciously accepted a demotion to assistant. Again, Schneekloth bided his time and earned the top job with the Eagles in 2023. He helmed the club for two strong seasons.
Obviously there was a ton of love and respect built into that kind of relationship. Could it be that the Avalanche took Scheekloth for granted? He did eventually move on to an assistant job with the Seattle Kraken in mid-June. Bennett was fired in May, and Hinote departed the first week of June. Schneekloth was still on staff for almost two months between Bennett's firing and his acceptance of the Seattle offer.
I don't think it's unfair to assume coach Schneekloth was waiting for the Avalanche to call him up to the big club. Again, for comparison's sake, it should be noted that the Kraken are 11th in power play efficiency at 23%.
Someday in the future, I may learn why the Avalanche landed on hiring Dave Hakstol. But sadly, with three long weeks to wait for the regular season to resume, I can only wonder how we got here in the strangest statistical quandary of my sports-watching life. The Colorado Avalanche have the best offense in hockey, and a power play ranked dead last.