The Avalanche had a busy weekend on the East Coast, but unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t a very fruitful trip. We thought Colorado got off to a tremendous start until we saw how things have started for the Devils, who have amassed 16\/18 possible points out of the gate. The Avalanche did all they could to scratch and claw back into Sunday\u2019s contest with the Devils, and that seems to be the theme of the last week for Jared Bednar and the boys. Can they get back into the win column, or will they fall victim to a red-hot Devils squad twice in three days?<\/p>\n
The Avalanche have secured 14\/20 points on the regular season themselves, but it\u2019s been a bit rough as of late, as they\u2019ve lost four straight, with three of the losses coming in overtime or shootout variety. A frustrating reality for fans who have seen one particular element go completely silent.<\/p>\n
The Colorado Avalanche power play is in shambles, and we are hearing all about it. The Avs can only blame themselves for the development of this narrative as they scapegoated the power play and Ray Bennett in the off-season.<\/p>\n
Turns out it might not be the approach but the personnel, and, understandably, that\u2019s not all that easy to understand. The Avalanche\u2019s top group on paper should be excellent on the power play, but in reality, they are more productive at even strength. Something has to give for this squad, which is currently 4\/39 (10.26%) on the man advantage, ranking 30th in the league. The Avalanche have scored one power play goal in the seven games since Nathan MacKinnon said, \u201cI guess they just don\u2019t know what a good power play looks like,\u201d in reference to the fans booing the power play against Dallas. Not a good look.<\/p>\n
Artturi Lehkonen \u2014 Nathan MacKinnon \u2014 Martin Necas
Viktor Olofsson \u2014 Brock Nelson \u2014 Valeri Nichushkin
Gabe Landeskog \u2014 Jack Drury \u2014 Ross Colton
Parker Kelly \u2014 Zakhar Bardakov \u2014 Gavin Brindley<\/p>\n
Devon Toews \u2014 Cale Makar
Josh Manson \u2014 Brent Burns
Ilya Solovyov \u2014 Sam Malinski<\/p>\n
Scott Wedgewood
Trent Miner<\/p>\n
The Devils are off and running, and it\u2019s primarily due to the availability of Jack Hughes, who clearly elevates this team into a playoff contender with the potential to make a real run at it. New Jersey has scored first in all eight of their victories, so it\u2019s safe to say they know how to get out on the right foot.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always interesting to see how a home-and-home series affects players, with the second game coming at altitude in Colorado. Most experts say the effects of altitude don\u2019t hit you until the second or third day, so it may be a non-factor for the Devils, but it\u2019s always something to keep an eye on.<\/p>\n
Another thing to keep an eye on is the physicality in this contest. It should come as no surprise that teams playing each other multiple times in a short time frame creates some animosity, and in this home-and-home situation, the potential for things bubbling to the surface is at an all-time high.<\/p>\n
Jake Allen
Jacob Marsktrom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Avalanche had a busy weekend on the East Coast, but unfortunately, it wasn\u2019t a very fruitful trip.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":268083,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5109],"tags":[201,5,576,151,5185,5184,4,1346],"class_list":{"0":"post-273773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-jersey-devils","8":"tag-devils","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-new-jersey","11":"tag-new-jersey-devils","12":"tag-newjersey","13":"tag-newjerseydevils","14":"tag-nhl","15":"tag-open-threads"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115458705123325190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/268083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}