The Avalanche had a random quirk in the schedule Monday night, and a game that carried a little more consequence than a typical late-season contest against a rebuilding club.<\/p>\n
It was Game No. 73 of 82, but it was also the first of the season against the Calgary Flames. It was also two days after the league-leading Avs dropped their fourth consecutive game at Ball Arena, including three in regulation. This is the same group that lost twice in regulation in the first 40 games of the campaign.<\/p>\n
So, the preparation for what would otherwise be a pretty random Monday night tilt for a Stanley Cup contender waiting for the important games to come took on a little more significance. And the pregame prep worked, because the Avs started fast and crushed the Flames<\/a> in one of the most impressive performances of the season.<\/p>\n The next day, Jared Bednar was at the Hockey Analytics League Operations (HALO) meetings and conference<\/a> at Ball Arena. Hosted by Arik Parnass, head of the Avs\u2019 analytics department, it was the largest gathering of NHL analytics staffers the league has ever seen \u2014 nearly 90 employees from 31 clubs. One of the panels during the conference was a live taping of the PDOCast<\/a>, a popular, analytics-friendly hockey podcast hosted by Dimitri Filipovic, and Bednar was a guest on the show.<\/p>\n Bednar gave the 300 people in attendance an in-depth look at how the Avs operate and how he coaches. One of the most fascinating topics was how he uses the data Colorado\u2019s analytics department provides him, and what he passes on to his players.<\/p>\n \u201c(The analytics team) digs in on our opposition, so like we hadn\u2019t seen Calgary yet this year,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cSo I dig in, and I have an idea that they\u2019re a quick breakout team \u2014 sixth-fastest in the league, and they\u2019re fourth-fastest through the neutral zone \u2014 like everything\u2019s up and out quick. So we have to manage our depth on our forecheck right away. We want to hunt their \u2018D.\u2019 They\u2019re prone to some turnovers, but we need to manage our depth because we can\u2019t let guys get in behind us.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was an important point for us (Monday) night. I felt like if we got on top of them quickly on the forecheck, that we could create some turnovers. We did. Their (defensive) coverage is a similar coverage to what we\u2019d seen before, that our team tends to have significant amount of success against. So you\u2019re just hitting points again from some of the teams that you just played that had the same coverage. We wanted to make sure we\u2019re shooting the puck and challenge them inside. We did that. And then on the defensive side of it, like what do you need to be aware of?\u201d<\/p>\n That was far more information than a typical NHL coach might want to reveal about an opponent, especially one the Avs still have to play two more times this season. But it was a peak behind the curtain of how Bednar uses the information at his disposal to get his team ready to play.<\/p>\n