With NHL preseason in full swing, the Colorado Avalanche have begun preparations for the 2024-25 season. Established regulars are ramping up their conditioning while prospects, training camp invitees, and players on the margins of the big club are pushing to claim one of the few roster spots up for grabs.
Outside of the positional battles across the lineup, the team as a whole hopes to use preseason to refine its on-ice strategies. While the Avalanche were comfortably a top-10 team in terms of five-on-five play and the power play last season, the penalty kill remains a specific point of concern heading into the new campaign. Worrying late-season trends and an overhaul in personnel drive the uncertainty, but hope remains that the shorthanded units can find their footing before long – let’s dive in.
Avalanche Penalty Kill Defined by Inconsistency in 2023-24
In terms of raw efficiency, the Avalanche killed 79.7% of all penalties last season which ranked 12th in the league, with the power play ranking fifth (24.5%) in comparison.
The final ranking masks how the team’s shorthanded units were in the midst of a lengthy backslide which spanned the entire second half of the season. From Jan. 1 onwards (45 games), Colorado ranked 25th with a kill rate of 76.5% but a humming Avalanche offense (third in overall goals per game; 10th in powerplay efficiency) helped maintain a points percentage (PTS%) rate of .644 (10th) over that same time frame.
Despite the continued run of wins, the penalty kill was exposed as a real tender spot for an otherwise solid group in other game states with netminder Alexandar Georgiev struggling in his sophomore season in Colorado (.897 save percentage/SV%). In spite of Georgiev’s stumble, the penalty kill’s unreliability cannot fully be solely attributed to his frustratingly inconsistent play.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Avalanche ranked 18th in shots (SA/60) and 25th in high-danger chances (HDCA/60) allowed per 60 minutes while shorthanded. Those are defensive statistics collected independent of a goalie’s play, and paint the team as one that was below average at reducing the quantity and quality of chances against over the course of the season.
Just as the Avalanche’s penalty-kill efficacy dropped over the second half of the season, so did their shot and chance numbers. From Jan. 1 on, they ranked 25th and 27th in the league respectively. Some of that coincided with the absences of Valeri Nichushkin and Logan O’Connor, but losing a single player shouldn’t tank any team’s strategy to such a degree.
Avalanche Penalty-Killing Personnel Changed After Busy Offseason
While seeing a change in personnel may not be the worst thing for the Avalanche after trotting out a subpar penalty kill last season, the resulting lineup turnover may not have the intended effect. Here’s a look at the Avalanche’s most-utilized forwards on the penalty kill last season, sorted by total time on ice (TOI).
Player
Total TOI
Average TOI
Andrew Cogliano
169
2:15
Logan O’Connor
130
2:17
Valeri Nichushkin
98
1:49
Miles Wood
91
1:14
Artturi Lehkonen
79
1:45
Avalanche forwards ranked by total TOI while shorthanded during the 2023-24 regular season
Cogliano also led all of the Avalanche’s penalty-killing forwards in total TOI during the playoffs, with trade deadline acquisition Yakov Trenin replacing the injured O’Connor in an otherwise unchanged top five.
Unfortunately for the Avalanche, the 2024 offseason brought on significant change in those staffing the penalty-killing department up front. Cogliano and Zach Parise (ninth in usage in the regular season) retired, Fredrik Olofsson (sixth) left for Europe, and Trenin (eighth) and Brandon Duhaime (tenth) both signed elsewhere in free agency.
For those still under contract with the organization, their availability and effectiveness are a mixed bag. O’Connor is coming off of season-ending hip surgery last spring, Lehkonen may not be ready for the start of the season due to offseason surgery, and Nichushkin is serving a well-documented suspension until at least mid-November.
Assuming that Lehkonen and Nichushkin are both unavailable to start the season, O’Connor, Joel Kiviranta (seventh), and Ross Colton (12th) are all poised to see a notable bump in usage on the penalty kill.
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In two moves made with foresight, the Avalanche invited veteran center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to training camp on a professional tryout (PTO) and signed depth forward Parker Kelly in free agency.
Bellemare played two seasons in Colorado (2019-20 and 2020-21) and even at age 39, could be a secondary option on the penalty kill after ranking fifth among Seattle Kraken forwards in shorthanded ice time during an injury-riddled 2023-24 season. Kelly ranks 24th in average ice time on the penalty kill over the past two seasons, and could become a fixture on one of the two units granted he dresses for most games.
There isn’t much to discuss on one of the NHL’s best blue lines, with all four of the Avalanche’s top penalty-killing defensemen (Cale Makar, Devon Toews, Josh Manson, and Samuel Girard) still in the fold.
Toews (10th in total ice time) and Makar (40th) were both utilized particularly heavily in shorthanded situations with both unsurprisingly finishing in the top 20 in overall usage in all situations. There is a question about whether this is the most optimal way for the Avalanche to deploy their two star defensemen, though at least one of their offseason moves seemed geared towards reducing the pair’s workload.
Calvin de Haan (1:56 per game) ranked 103rd among qualified blueliners in average penalty-kill usage last season (minimum 10 games played) and could allow the team to spread out the minutes more evenly among its six defensemen. For what it’s worth, Erik Brannstrom has penalty-killing experience at the NHL level, though it’s unlikely he will see a regular shift while shorthanded under head coach Jared Bednar.
The Avalanche’s penalty kill is set to look wildly different, regardless of how Bednar and his assistants decide to deploy their charges. The good news is that there is plenty of room for improvement, and the Avalanche are always looking to find their next edge.
Special Teams Key to Avalanche Success in 2024-25
It may seem like stating the obvious but finding success in special teams situations is imperative for the Avalanche. The team’s vaunted offensive weapons should undoubtedly produce one of the league’s best power plays for what seems like the tenth year running, but a new cast of penalty-killers and inconsistency in net could lead to uncertainty with the shorthanded units.
Teams can survive the ebbs and flows of special teams effectiveness during a long regular season, but the small sample size of the playoffs magnifies the importance and influence of those units in a team’s success. There is an entire regular season to play until the postseason becomes relevant in these discussions and reinforcements can be found at the trade deadline, but the early-season returns can often set the tone for the rest of the campaign. The Avalanche will hope it’s a positive one.
