The Colorado Avalanche concluded the month of October by hitting a bit of a speedbump, losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres by identical 4-0 scorelines. Despite a pair of unsettling losses against teams who themselves have struggled, the Avalanche are still in good standing heading into November. The Avalanche own a 6-2-0 record and rank fifth in the NHL by points percentage (PTS%) to go along with a fairly manageable rest-of-season schedule.
Tankathon estimates their remaining schedule to be the 11th-easiest with games against the St.Louis Blues (twice), Seattle Kraken (twice), Calgary Flames (once), Arizona Coyotes (once), and Nashville Predators (once) on the docket over the course of November. Those teams all rank 19th or lower in the overall league standings by PTS%, so the Avalanche have a ready-made opportunity to get back on the horse.
With that context in mind, let’s dive into the first monthly analytics report of the 2023-24 season, beginning with five observations about the Avalanche’s play in October. If you need a rundown of the statistics being used in this article, read The Hockey Writers’ analytics primer here.
Avalanche Finding No Luck at Five-on-Five
If you focused solely on the Avalanche’s possession numbers at five-on-five, you could be led to believe that the team is having no issues in that particular department. Whether you abide by a team’s share of shots (SF%), expected goals (xGF%), scoring chances (SCF%), or high-danger chances (HDCF%) in your analysis, the team has fared well across the analytical spectrum. Well, except for one key area.
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The Avalanche have accounted for 54.9% of SF (second), 56.2% of xGF (fourth), 55.4% of SCF (sixth), and 58.1% of HDCF (fourth), but has been outscored 17-13 at five-on-five with their 43% goals for ratio ranking 24th in the NHL.
The primary culprits driving the massive discrepancy at five-on-five are subpar goaltending (their .899 save percentage/SV% ranks 26th) and a miserable shooting percentage (SH%) of 6.3% which puts them 27th in the league.
To pile onto the misery, the Avalanche also rank dead-last in high-danger SH% at five-on-five (4.1%), a whole three percentage points lower than the San Jose Sharks who famously did not win a single game in October.
Considering their luck (or lack thereof) at five-on-five, it’s a minor miracle that they currently lead the Central Division. The principle of puck luck suggests that the Avalanche should get back to scoring regularly before long, even if the road there is long and painful.
Makar-Toews Pairing Struggling at Five-on-Five
Continuing the trend of five-on-five concerns, the Avalanche haven’t gotten the typically sparkling results that they are accustomed to from their top defensive pair of Cale Makar and Devon Toews. The long-time partners have logged 96 minutes together at five-on-five, with two other Avalanche pairings (Samuel Girard-Bowen Byram and Jack Johnson-Josh Manson) also passing the 50-minute time-on-ice (TOI) benchmark.
| Pairing | TOI | SF% | xGF% | SCF% | HDCF% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Toews-Makar | 96 | 49 | 48 | 47 | 48 |
| Girard-Byram | 91 | 61 | 68 | 67 | 68 |
| Johnson-Manson | 70 | 61 | 59 | 57 | 59 |
In terms of actual goals for and against, the Toews-Makar (3-5), Girard-Byram (1-1), and Johnson-Manson (1-3) duos have experienced varying levels of success. The difference is that in the top pair’s case, the actual goal differential lines up with the underlying numbers.
Excluding shifts started in the neutral zone or on the fly, they’ve also started 62.5% of their shifts in the offensive zone, a much more favorable zone-start ratio than the Girard-Byram (40%) and Johnson-Manson (25%) pairings.
Sure, it’s important to cut the pair some slack. They play the most minutes at even strength and face the toughest competition on a nightly basis. Yet, their results are in such stark contrast to years past that there should be some concern even after considering the small sample size.
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Of the 47 defensive pairs to have played at least 1,000 minutes at five-on-five over the three previous seasons, the Toews-Makar partnership ranks second in SCF%, third in SF% and xGF%, and eighth in HDCF%. This is a combo that’s demonstrated excellence and longevity. As they go, so do the Avalanche.
Avalanche Power Play Not Converting at Usual Rate
Since this iteration of the Avalanche began hoarding elite talent via the draft, their power play has generally been a constant strength. Starting with the current core’s surprise 2017-18 season, the team’s power play has ranked sixth (2022-23), seventh (2018-19 and 2021-22), eighth (2017-18 and 2020-21), and 19th (2019-20) in the NHL by efficiency.
Apart from the outlier season, head coach Jared Bednar has been able to trot out a top-10 unit on the man advantage with regularity. It’s that fact which makes this year’s powerplay struggles concerning (they rank 15th at 18.8%). The underlying numbers don’t suggest that the Avalanche are simply facing a bout of poor finishing, as is the case at five-on-five.
| Per-60-Minutes | Avalanche | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Goals | 7.1 | 15th |
| Shots | 58.9 | 13th |
| Scoring Chances | 66 | 11th |
| High-Danger Chances | 25.9 | 14th |
| Expected Goals | 8.5 | 15th |
The Avalanche’s rate stats all point to an otherwise uber-talented collection of offense struggling to put it together. They’re not getting the quality or volume of chances which usually lend themselves to a high-ranking power play. It’s something that plagued them last season before they found success.
In particular, superstar center Nathan MacKinnon is not creating his usual calibre of scoring opportunities. Not only has he failed to score a goal with the man advantage, but his individual rates of scoring chances, expected goals, and high-danger chances are at their lowest in four seasons. He’s still firing shots at the second-highest clip of his career, so it seems he’s too focused on just getting shots on net rather than trying to carve out better chances.
Whether it’s the impact of a number of new faces needing time to gel or an ineffective strategy, the Avalanche need something to change if their power play is to return to being a strength.
Avalanche Experimenting with Forward Lines
General manager Chris MacFarland’s offseason roster surgery has been well-documented, with several new faces up front currently being integrated into the Avalanche lineup with varying degrees of success.
The key additions in Jonathan Drouin, Tomas Tatar, Ross Colton, Fredrik Olofsson, Miles Wood, and Ryan Johansen have all rotated through the forward combinations to some extent. However, some in that group appear to have settled into more permanent places in the lineup.
According to MoneyPuck, the Avalanche have given nine different forward combinations at least 15 minutes of playing time at even-strength this season. Of those nine, four unique trios have stood out and should be what Bednar trots out going forward, barring injury.
| Line | TOI | xGF% | GF-GA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lehkonen-Johansen-Nichushkin | 34 | 68 | 1-1 |
| Drouin-Colton-Wood | 29 | 66 | 0-0 |
| Cogliano-Olofsson-O’Connor | 43 | 64 | 1-1 |
| Tatar-MacKinnon-Rantanen | 16 | 58 | 1-2 |
By the numbers, we can draw out a few interesting conclusions. It appears as though Johansen has seamlessly slid into the second-line center role in the early going, tallying four goals and five points in eight games. Questions were raised about his skating and defensive impact, but surrounding him with a pair of forechecking demons in Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin effectively insulates Johansen’s weaknesses at five-on-five.
After failing to stick on the first line with Colorado’s stars, winger Drouin teamed up with two other offseason acquisitions in Colton and Wood to form a diverse third line. The trio only counts two goals and four points between them through the first month of the season, but they’re consistently winning the territorial battle at five-on-five so better results should follow.
The biggest story up front has been the play of the fourth line with returnees Andrew Cogliano and Logan O’Connor (he of three shorthanded goals in eight games) being joined by the 27-year-old Olofsson. The triumvirate has held their matchups to an even draw in the goals battle and accounted for nearly two-thirds of the expected goals share. Cup contenders need a pesky line to rely on when the going gets tough and it looks like Bednar has his go-to combination.
Tatar – signed as a free agent right before training camp – started with Colton and Wood on the third line but uninspiring results have left him cycling in with the Avalanche’s superstars up front. Sixteen minutes of ice time is hardly a meaningful sample over the course of an entire season, but a 58% expected goals share against top competition should earn that trio an extended look.
Georgiev Continues Strong Play in Avalanche Net
Don’t be fooled by Alexandar Georgiev’s recent box-score performances where consecutive 4-0 losses have made his numbers look a bit underwhelming on the surface. The 27-year-old netminder has been a rock in the crease to start his second season as a member of the Avalanche and the underlying numbers bear that out.
Georgiev has started (eight) and won (six) the most games in the NHL this season, and his .915 SV% and 2.40 goals-against average (GAA) rank 19th and 13th respectively among goalies who have appeared in at least two games. At first glance, those latter two marks don’t seem all that impressive but his early-season performance grades out better when considering the quality of shots he’s faced in the Avalanche goal.
Georgiev owns a plus-3.89 mark (14th among qualified goalies) in Evolving Hockey’s goals saved above expected (GSAx) metric while being tasked with starting every one of Colorado’s games in October.
Georgiev fared well in his first extended stint as a starter last season (11th in GSAx over 62 games), but giving him a night off or two in November would go a long way in ensuring he stays fresh into the playoffs.
Avalanche Should Thrive in November
Despite back-to-back shutout losses at the hands of inferior opposition, the Avalanche should see the positives in their performances during October.
They’ve returned to being an elite possession team at five-on-five, continued to get strong goaltending, and can likely count on their luck to change for the better as their percentages revert back to normal. After all, posting a .750 PTS% through any month of the season is nothing to scoff at, especially if the signs indicate your record could be even better.
Hockey is a famously unpredictable sport but I feel safe in saying that the Avalanche will continue to chug along at a Stanley Cup pace in November.
Data courtesy of Evolving Hockey, MoneyPuck, and Natural Stat Trick.