Avalanche Highlights & Lowlights

John-Michael Liles

Well the season is underway and the Colorado Avalanche are off to a pretty good start. They currently sit seventh in the Western Conference with a 2-1-0 record.

They started the season by beating the Chicago Blackhawks who are also the defending Stanley Cup Champions 4-3 in overtime on a Paul Stastny goal. They then flew to Philadelphia to begin a five game road trip and looked absolutely horrible for the first period against the Flyers and ultimately lost 4-2, with an empty netter.

The team recovered well from that loss the next night against the Detroit Red Wings and came from behind three times to force a 4-4 tie. The game went into overtime, which was dominated by Detroit, but Peter Budaj kept the door closed and forced a shootout. Finally, in the 6th round of the shootout Brandon Yip beat Jimmy Howard with a wrist shot to give the Avalanche the 5-4 shootout win.

One reoccuring theme throughout these three games is the ineffectiveness of the power play. If it was possible to decline penalties like it is in the NFL I would highly recommend the Avs do so. Not only are they 1 for 10 (23rd in the NHL) with the man advantage, but they have given up two shorthanded goals, and one that was scored literally seconds after a penalty expired.

Something needs to be done with the power play, not only in the offensive zone, but defensively as well. Defensemen have to be aware of what is going on around them. If one man pinches his partner needs to get back to cover for him in case he misplays it. It’s something you are taught early on in your hockey career. You should always be at a 45 degree angle with your parnter. This allows you to cover for him if an opponent gets by with the puck. Offensively the Avalanche are really missing Peter Mueller’s shot from the point which helped tremendously at the end of last season. There are not any defensemen who have a rocket from the point, which is a huge part of any power play. A forward needs to be put back in that position and try to fill Mueller’s role on the power play. Brandon Yip is one player who, in my opinon, could be a great fill in for this position. He has enough speed to get back and help out defensively if he gets caught and he has a great slap shot.

The surprise of this extremely young season is John-Michael Liles. He spent much of last season in Joe Sacco’s dog house splitting time between the ice and the press box. Maybe that helped to motivate Liles or maybe not, but something has lit a fire under his butt and it is showing. Liles is currently leading the league with 5 assists through the first three games of the season. At this rate he will easily put up a 40 point season.

There was a lot of speculation last season about Liles being traded, and now with his stock rising once again those rumors are already starting to brew. What do you guys think? Should Colorado look to move Liles and bring in a forward that can replace Mueller on the power play? Should they just stick with what they have and fill the spot from within? Let me know by commenting below!

(Image property of svictoria29)