The Avalanche power play woke up from its slumber Tuesday night.
Entering their game against the New Jersey Devils at Ball Arena, the Avs’ power play had been scuffling. The unit was 4 for 39 through the first 10 games — a scoring rate of 10.3% that ranked third-worst in the league.
But Tuesday, that unit propelled Colorado to a much-needed 8-4 win over New Jersey that snapped a four-game losing streak (0-1-3) and re-established just how dangerous the Avs can be with a man advantage. Colorado scored four times on the power play — matching its season total — in six chances.
What was the driving factor in that reversal of fortune? Avs head coach Jared Bednar pointed to his team’s aggression.
“It wasn’t skate around, look for the perfect play,” Bednar explained. “It was (Martin Necas) hammering it right away, Cale (Makar) hammering it right away, (Nathan MacKinnon) hammering it right away. We got one (goal early), and they just wanted to keep doing it.
“… We’ve got some really good shooters up there, and it doesn’t have to be a perfect shot all the time. We can learn a lot from that today.”
The unit got the Avs on the board within the first 90 seconds of the game, when textbook execution allowed Necas to blast a slap shot past New Jersey goalie Jacob Markstrom on the bottom left shelf to make it 1-0.
And the power play didn’t fade after that early spark. Instead, it allowed Colorado to pour it on and, later, reassert control after the Devils stormed back.
MacKinnon scored on the power play 7:11 into the second period off assists from Makar and Victor Olofsson, allowing Colorado to capitalize on a 5-on-3 advantage following a pair of New Jersey penalties. That slap shot lamp-lighter made it 4-0, fueling what looked to be a rout as the Avs added an even-strength goal less than two minutes later to push the score to 5-0.
But after the Devils rattled off four goals in the span of about four minutes, Colorado needed the power play to come through again. It did, with MacKinnon again finding the net late in the second off assists from Makar and Olofsson.
“That was a great bounce-back after their fourth goal,” Olofsson said. “It got the momentum back for us, and I thought overall we did a good job of keeping it simple tonight.”
In the final period, Olofsson put the game out of reach with a power-play goal 3:10 into the frame.
Olofsson took a beautiful backward pass from MacKinnon in the right crease and easily wristed one past Markstrom. Olofsson would later add icing on the cake with a late goal in the third to secure his first career hat-trick, and a snowman score for Colorado.
The power-play onslaught against the Devils, who entered Thursday on an eight-game winning streak, made up for an especially abysmal last seven games for the Colorado unit. It was 1 for 24 on the man-advantage in that stretch (4.2%). The lone goal came in last week’s shootout loss to Carolina — a game in which the Avs were 1 for 8 on the power play.
After Thursday’s outburst, Colorado is now 8 for 45 on the power play, boosting its percentage to 17.8%. From the other end of the ice, goalie Scott Wedgewood is hopeful the performance gives the unit momentum heading into this weekend’s road trip at Vegas and San Jose.
“You get snakebitten at times, and it’s not a lack of trying or a lack of will (from that unit),” Wedgewood said. “Some go in, some don’t, you hit the post and there’s some big saves from goalies. … But no one was breaking sticks or yelling at each other over it. We knew the time would come, and hopefully tonight gives (the unit) a boost going forward to keep putting picks on net and shooting.”
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