{"id":680515,"date":"2026-10-07T00:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T00:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/680515\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T00:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T00:48:23","slug":"avalanche-thrives-with-11-forwards-because-of-depth-positional-flexibility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/680515\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche thrives with 11 forwards because of depth, positional flexibility"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Nazem Kadri<\/a> says it feels like he\u2019s playing with everyone right now, he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Avalanche<\/a> began the season with two convincing victories, but also with a look the club rarely shows. Avs coach Jared Bednar, because of injuries to Zachary L\u2019Heureux and Logan O\u2019Connor and salary cap limitations, deployed 11 forwards and seven defensemen in an 8-4 win against the Los Angeles Kings<\/a> and then a 6-1 rout of the St. Louis Blues<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kadri and fellow veteran forward Nicolas Roy were two of the players<\/a> who moved around the lineup the most. The former took at least parts of three even-strength shifts with each of the other 10 forwards who dressed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a lot to process from shift-to-shift,\u201d Kadri said. \u201cThankfully, I\u2019ve got great teammates who help me talk it out. A lot of things within the structure are instinctual. I\u2019ve been around and have lots of great experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it\u2019s not as easy as I\u2019m making it look, but it\u2019s been pretty seamless and I\u2019m enjoying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Avs are likely to revert to the traditional look \u2014 12 forwards, six defensemen \u2014 as soon as Wednesday night in Winnipeg. Bednar said he expects both L\u2019Heureux and O\u2019Connor to play during this two-game road trip.<\/p>\n

Still, the first 11-7 experiment for the first two games was certainly a success. And don\u2019t be surprised if the Avalanche go back to it later in the season when another forward injury pops up. The Avs want to free up as much cap space as possible before the trade deadline, and a trustworthy No. 7 defenseman like Noah Juulsen could give the coach more comfort with the unorthodox alignment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think with the flexibility we had, it just allows you to balance the minutes out and keep everyone involved,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cYou\u2019ve got different guys who can jump in and give our centers a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sometimes when a team goes 11-7 in a game, the result is three lines playing more, with the two extras getting a shift here and there. For the Avs, that might mean heavy usage for Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Brock Nelson in particular.<\/p>\n

Through two games, Kadri leads Colorado\u2019s forwards in even-strength time on ice. Fedor Svechkov, one of the candidates to get squeezed, is second. MacKinnon is fifth, just ahead of rookie T.J. Hughes.<\/p>\n

The Avs\u2019 ability to take a lead and then extend it in both games certainly helped Bednar spread out the ice time. But having seven guys among those 11 forwards who can play center at the NHL level was critical for Bednar to mix and match.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got a rotation I like to use in my head, but then you\u2019ve got to ad lib for a little bit,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cTV timeouts, special teams, guys get rested \u2014 I have a good idea of who I want to pick up the extra shifts and who I want to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Using the NHL\u2019s full play-by-play data, we can see how Kadri played with everyone else, and how Roy moved around as well. Through two games, Kadri has had 46 \u201cshifts\u201d at even strength.<\/p>\n

A longer shift might include 20-30 seconds with more than two linemates as the team changes on the fly, so that one technically counts as two for this exercise.<\/p>\n

Nelson and captain Gabe Landeskog have been Kadri\u2019s most-frequent linemates in both games. That is Colorado\u2019s second line, until the ad-libbing has to begin. Nelson (27) and Landeskog (24) were 55.4% of Kadri\u2019s 92 possible linemates.<\/p>\n

Artturi Lehkonen was next with seven, but Kadri took as many shifts with MacKinnon and Necas as he did with Fedor Svechkov (six each). He didn\u2019t have any even-strength shifts with Jaden Schwartz in the opener, although they did plenty of good work together on the second power-play unit<\/a>. Then Kadri had three with the ex-Blues star against St. Louis.<\/p>\n

Roy did not play with everyone at evens, but he got close. Parker Kelly (23) was Roy\u2019s go-to linemate, and Svechkov was the only other guy in double digits (10). He took three with both MacKinnon and Nelson, though none with Necas and Landeskog.<\/p>\n

Kadri took shifts at left wing, center and right wing in both games. As one of the few righties up front, Roy didn\u2019t take any shifts on the left side.<\/p>\n

Still, even where they thought they\u2019d play for some shifts can change with the flow of the game. Players like Kadri and Roy, who can process and adapt quickly at different positions, are valuable over a long season, especially when the Avs decide to roll with just 11 forwards.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith our system, the first guy back in the (defensive) zone is taking the low guy,\u201d Roy said. \u201cWe\u2019re mostly man-on-man, so that\u2019s not that big of a thing. It\u2019s mostly with faceoffs, whether you\u2019re taking them or not, and assignments off faceoffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery player on this team is really good, so that definitely helps. It doesn\u2019t really matter who you play with. Playing with 11 forwards, the rotation is a little different. We\u2019re ready to go, no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Nazem Kadri says it feels like he\u2019s playing with everyone right now, he\u2019s right. The Colorado Avalanche…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":680516,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[2320,193,1034,192,144,5277,1035,5,1117,1180,513,1262,517,2054,4,6295,43],"class_list":["post-680515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-artturi-lehkonen","tag-avalanche","tag-brock-nelson","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-gabe-landeskog","tag-hockey","tag-jared-bednar","tag-latest-headlines","tag-martin-necas","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-nathan-mackinnon","tag-nazem-kadri","tag-nhl","tag-parker-kelly","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/117396878398713552","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680515","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=680515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/680515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/680516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=680515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=680515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}