This Colorado Avalanche team is dismantling opponents when it has the same number of players on the ice. It almost doesn’t seem fair for the Avs to be best in the league with fewer players as well.
Colorado is the pacesetter in the NHL this season, improving to 22-2-7 with a 6-2 thrashing Thursday night of the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. The Avalanche leads the league in points, goals scored and fewest goals allowed.
They are clearly the best team in the NHL at even strength, with the most even-strength goals scored through 30 games in 37 years. But, as of Friday morning, the Avs are also ranked No. 1 on the penalty kill, at 86.4%.
“Everybody has bought in to keeping the puck out our of net,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “It’s got a certain aggressiveness to it, like a style and an identity that they’ve been developing from Day One of training camp, and it’s working.”
Colorado has been consistently solid on the penalty kill in recent years but never close to excellent over the course of a full season. The Avs have killed off 79.0% to 79.8% of opposing power-play opportunities in each of the past four years. That was good enough to finish between 12th and 18th in the league, with a pair of 12th-place finishes the past two seasons.
This is a different level of success. Colorado has allowed 12 power-play goals in 31 games, including 10 in typical 4-on-5 situations. Both are tops in the league. The Avs also have allowed one 3-on-4 goal and one 3-on-5.
Only one team, the Rangers on Nov. 20, has scored twice with the man advantage in one game against them. They have not allowed a power-play goal in three straight games at any point.
“Just consistency, I think,” Avs goalie Scott Wedgewood said. “When you have the luxury of the guys we have killing and the smarts and the IQ that what we’re going to give up, we preplan in a way. There’s high-end skill, and teams are going to make plays, but we’ve been doing a good job of keeping that crazy stuff off our net.
“You’re going to get a chance, but it’s going to be something that’s one play. It’s not going to be shot, rebound … and everyone’s scrambling. … The whole recipe for success has been pretty consistent, which I think is obviously nice when you know what you’re doing and guys can execute it.”
Assistant coach Nolan Pratt runs the penalty kill and has long been an underrated part of the machine in Colorado. The most obvious example this season was when the Avs went to Vegas and Pavel Dorofeyev was leading the NHL in power-play goals. The Golden Knights had six chances with the man advantage and eventually did score once, but Dorofeyev was a non-factor. And Wedgewood credited Pratt’s gameplan afterward.
One reason for the improvement this year is the depth of quality penalty killers available. Jack Drury, Brent Burns and Brock Nelson have become key members of the PK, and none of them was here in early December a year ago.
Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen have been stalwarts for years but haven’t always been available. The combo of Drury and Parker Kelly has been excellent together as the No. 1 forward pairing, and then bringing guys like Nichushkin, Lehkonen and Nelson off the bench behind them to cause havoc even before teams can get set up has been a recipe for success.
The advanced stats don’t show a team that necessarily should be running the hottest PK in the league, but the underlying numbers aren’t bad either. Colorado is in the top 10 in expected goals against per 60 minutes and high-danger chances allowed per 60.
“Maybe some small tweaks here, but I think it’s just been the effort of everyone,” Drury said. “I think we got off to a good start, and all the PK guys start getting excited about it. You see that you’re pretty high up in the league, and I think we all value that a lot. It means a lot to us. We’re just taking a lot of pride in it, and then (Pratt) is doing a great job preparing us. He has us ready for every game, and we’re on the same page.”
But the biggest advantage at this point is the goaltenders. Colorado has a team save percentage of .908 on the PK, which is second in the league. The Avs were 15th in PK save percentage last year, but also 28th on Dec. 1, before Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood arrived.
They were fourth in the league from Dec. 11 through the rest of the season, which makes the start to this season feel like a continuation from last year.
“Goaltending is a big part of it,” Bednar said. “Any penalty kill that is really good, your goaltenders are some of your best penalty killers. I think they’ve been doing a good job overall, but they’ve been exceptional on the penalty kill.”
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