Opinion: How conflict and contradiction have cost the Colorado Avalanche

Now consider that the bottom of the Avalanche forward group, which embodied the system and approach, was clearly the most effective group, yet still sat and watched an uncomfortable, hobbled Nate MacKinnon and Cale Makar attempt to wince their way to a comeback in the closing seconds of games three and four.

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I’ll be super clear on one thing. I’m not suggesting you bench either Nathan MacKinnon or Cale Makar, but rather that you reward the guys who are buying in and give yourself the best shot of winning by doing so.

Problems Perculate on the Power Play

You know where I see contradiction most obviously? How Colorado approaches the power play.

Anyone who has followed the Avalanche season from start to finish knows that the power play was a hot-button topic all season after the Avalanche and their failure to execute on the man advantage last postseason dominated offseason narratives.

The power play struggled again during the majority of the regular season and in the postseason.

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Adjustments were made to try to enable the highly talented top group, but in general, the Avalanche’s power play, with world-class talent, was nowhere near as effective as it should have been.

None of those adjustments panned out, yet it was still the first unit that consistently held the majority of the advantage. The second power play group that has a few players you just had to trade for hardly ever saw a look at more than 30 seconds of a power play. Most of the time, it takes 5-10 seconds just to enter and cycle. So basically, the second group constantly got one crack at making a difference, even when the top group clearly wasn’t.

Working Up the Leaderboard

Now that I’ve laid it out, I want to talk a bit about the power dynamic in Colorado, as I see leadership from players all the way up to management having a hand in the separation between philosophy and practice.

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Let’s start with Captain Gabe Landeskog, who definitely bought into the system and was among Colorado’s most effective postseason players for two consecutive seasons now. Gabe no doubt has a unique perspective given his storied return to hockey, and was obviously in various shades of disappointment/frustration throughout the Vegas series.

When Jared Bednar was first brought on, here’s what Landeskog had to say about Bednar’s approach: “He wants to play fast. He wants to play quick and play in the O-zone and get on the forecheck. With our speed up front, I think it will benefit us. Spending less time in the D-zone will be something we’ll all be looking to do. The systems are going to work to our advantage.”

Based on Landeskog’s performance, he clearly appreciates Bednar’s strategy, and on paper, all of what he saw does fit this Avalanche squad. But what happens when your top guys try to red-cape it when the going gets tough?

Gabe is doing plenty, as far as I’m concerned, by leading by example and by saying what needs to be said. With that, I turn to the head coach and how he could empower Landeskog and get the top guys to hold the big picture dear, no matter how competitive and capable they are, or how much adversity they face.

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Playoff hockey is like playing a game of stygian chicken, and Vegas never, not once, thought about changing course. They were going to go for a head-on collision or force the Avs to veer out of desperation.

The Avalanche did veer off course, playing like an insecure club without any answers for what was being thrown at them.

Vegas clogged the middle of the ice, stayed home, capitalized on Colorado’s mistakes, and said, “We can do this all night.”

Colorado responded by being perfectly content with the fool’s gold of perimeter looks, time and time again.

The message was “we gotta keep playing our game,” but in my opinion, they stopped playing Avalanche hockey in game two of the Western Conference Final.

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Does the undeniable shelf life of Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar as Avalanche mainstays require that Jared Bednar cater to them to a fault for survival? Would he be let go quickly if he stood his ground or made more public statements about the specifics of his displeasure?

Did we see a passive-aggressive version of that with the “It’s up to Cale” phiasco? It’s impossible to say for sure, as vagueness is among the most-used tools in Bednar’s press bag.

If Bednar isn’t comfortable sticking to his guns to foster a pleased elite core, that presents a real problem.

The Great Divide

You don’t need to be a part of an NHL hockey team to know what a lack of accountability or consistency can do to a team. In business, if one employee sees another employee afforded benefits despite poor performance, it can be demoralizing. Moreover, if the message is “do your job,” but some are enabled not to do so, the whole group begins to lose respect for the process and leadership.

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No one goes above and beyond for a boss who seems to do things that contradict his message.

The lack of accountability may lead to some division in the room, though I have no insight into that. On the surface, everything seems peachy (outside of disappointment), but that’s rarely the case when a team implodes like this.

I could apply this thinking to Jared Bednar as it pertains to his stars, but I really don’t think he, at his core, believes in catering to superstars over the team. If his actions contradict that, I have to look further up the leadership ladder to find a reason why, and I think I have one.

Starts at the Top

We can’t say Chris MacFarland caters to superstars if he traded one, right?

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Well, from my vantage, MacFarland has officially leveraged every shred of futures for the Avalanche in hopes of getting at least one more cup from the current core, and it’s all been for not.

After dealing more picks for specific roles, the Avalanche are both without hardware or a clear path into the future.

If your coach says it doesn’t matter who plays and that it’s about the system, wouldn’t it be better to develop more young guns and play the long game?

We have examples of exactly that already working in Colorado.

Logan O’Connor, Sam Malinski, and others have survived being traded long enough to develop into effective NHL players, with LOC being a huge part of the team’s identity. Or at least that’s what we are told.

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This whole article is riddled with hindsight and recency biases, but let’s take a look at some of the deals I view as challenging the idea that anyone can fill the roles in this system.

MacFarland leveraged Alex Newhook for Mikael Gulyayev, Ross Colton, and Gianni Fairbrother back in 2023, as Newhook was asked to fill in at 2C along with J.T. Compher when Kadri couldn’t be retained after a cup win.