A Stanley Cup favorite, Avalanche searching for ways to break out of an early season funk

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — Jared Bednar passed on making his squad rewatch a recent breakdown-filled 6-2 loss in Nashville.

“I’m going to show them how bad we were?” the longtime Colorado Avalanche coach reasoned.

The missteps are becoming a concerning pattern for a team that’s among the Stanley Cup favorites. The Avalanche have been shaky on the power play and in the defensive end. They’re sitting in the middle of the pack through 12 games (6-5-1). A season earlier, they led the NHL’s standings from early November on their way to capturing the Presidents’ Trophy for the best record.

Granted, they’ve had slow starts before. But in some ways this one feels a little more poignant on the heels of being swept by Vegas in the Western Conference finals last May.

“The most recent (slow start) or the one you’re going through always feels worse — until it’s gone,” Bednar said as his team prepared to host New Jersey on Wednesday night. “In order to win, you have to have the bulk of your team, if not all of your team, playing at 90% of their potential or greater.

“If you have two, three, five, six, eight guys that are at 50% or 60%, you’re not going to win. The league’s too good. I don’t care if you’re first place playing last place. You won’t win if you don’t have enough guys pulling the rope in the same direction. I feel like that’s a little bit of where we’ve been.”

Captain Gabriel Landeskog reiterated the team isn’t panicking.

“But there needs to be a level of urgency for sure in the way we play and the way we prepare,” he said. “Sometimes you get smacked in the face, especially this time of year, and you’ve just got to respond.”

The Avalanche thought they had things figured out after a pair of road losses at Philadelphia and New Jersey. They returned home and beat Tampa Bay 6-3.

Two days later, they allowed six goals to the Predators.

“It’s us as a group just not being good enough,” Landeskog said. “We’re used to winning and used to winning a lot this time of year, and establishing ourselves at top of the standings. That’s where you want to be as a group. But this year, we’re not winning. We’re finding ways to lose games here and there, and obviously, the bad ones have been real bad.

“We’ve got to dig our way out of it.”

Nicolas Roy could provide a boost with his return from a lower-body injury.

“We had some talks today and good energy in practice,” Roy said. “We’ll be ready.”

The power play remains a work in progress under new assistant coach Brett McLean, who took over after Dave Hakstol accepted the Arizona State head coaching job. The Avalanche are converting power-play chances at a 17.9% clip, which is tied for 23rd in the league.

It was an issue last season, too, but the penalty-kill unit helped camouflage some deficiencies. Colorado is weathering penalties at 75% this season. A year ago, it was 83.3%.

“We’ve laid way too many eggs in a 12-game span,” Landeskog said. “We have to respond as a group, and find a level of consistency.”

That applies on the defensive end, where Colorado is allowing 3.25 goals per game. Last season, the Avalanche surrendered the fewest goals in the league (197).

“You can’t convince me that a little bit of it is, or a lot of it is, urgency and work ethic and competitiveness,” Bednar said. “That’s what I’m seeing with our team. When we bring it, our execution is high and we’re playing not just good but really good.

“I’ve noticed this year more than any other one, when we’re not engaged our execution is horrible and we’re going nowhere. When it’s bad, it’s really bad. We haven’t found any middle ground yet.”

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