The way several Avalanche players and their coach spoke Saturday night after a convincing victory to begin the season with five straight wins, it sounded as if they were disappointed their record wasn’t somehow six and negative one.
The Avs ambushed the Carolina Hurricanes, one of the best defensive teams in the league for several years running, with a five-goal second-period flurry Saturday en route to a 6-4 triumph. Everything this Avalanche team has — star power, depth, excellent special teams, an ability to impose its will and style of play on its opponent — was on display against a team, albeit shorthanded, that many pundits predicted would win the Stanley Cup this season.
Those weren’t the things that the players and coach Jared Bednar were focused on after the contest.
“Maybe I’m just hard on our team because I expect a lot, but I think they expect a lot,” Bednar said. “I think we’ve done a nice job. I’m happy with the results. But I know that it is nowhere near as good as we can play. So we’re going to keep pushing to get there as fast and quick as we can to the top of our game and then maintain it and really hone in on the habits.”
Colorado is 5-0 to start the season and has three victories against 2023 playoff teams. The Avs didn’t feel great about parts of the opener in Los Angeles, but they still suffocated the Kings in the third period and won 5-2. They dominated two clubs expected to be bottom-feeders, San Jose and Chicago, but found small things to nitpick.
The win in Seattle was the worst process game of the young season, but Alexandar Georgiev was fantastic and a big shorthanded goal from Logan O’Connor was a turning point. The Avs still won that game by three goals.
“The good feeling is we think there is more from our group that we can deliver,” center Ryan Johansen said. “Obviously, it’s tough to do it for 60 minutes against other good teams, but for where we want to go and where we want to get to, there’s still room for improvement. We’re obviously happy with the start, but we’re going to keep working to get to level we want to get to.”
Other teams that have added as many as six new players to the lineup might be taking a little longer to sort things out. The Avalanche players say they have things to work on too, but the club is also stacking wins.
It was a theme during training camp — this franchise is hungry to win big again after a disappointing season. While every team in the history of sports has wanted to start every season strong, this club saw firsthand what a sluggish first half of a season can lead to in 2022-23.
“I think it’s just the culture and guys never really being satisfied,” Cale Makar said. “It’s just been ingrained in a lot of guys. I don’t think we are anywhere near as good as we can be. We are winning games, but I still think we can be a lot better.”
Everything is a small sample size this early in a season, but the Avs are near the top of the league in every major per-game, team-based category. They’re tied for fifth in goals, second in goals allowed, eighth on the power play, second on the penalty kill, second in shots on goal and fifth in shots on goal allowed.
Colorado has scored three times while shorthanded (all by O’Connor) while allowing only one power-play goal. The Avs have been plenty dominant at even strength as well: They’re generating a league-best 58.05% of the shots on goal at 5-on-5 and are third in expected goals percentage, per Natural Stat Trick.
There aren’t many nits to pick. Bo Byram has taken seven penalties in five games, and Bednar said that he’s struggling with his reads and his timing. The third line is the only one of the four that isn’t dictating the play more often than the opponent. No one knows if Ivan Prosvetov can be a viable No. 2 goalie yet, in part because the No. 1 guy has been awesome.
These are very much first-world NHL problems.
“I still see more potential out of our team,” Bednar said Sunday after practice. “We’re still talking a lot about what we want to look like from an identity standpoint, like how we can play faster, cleaner and more predictable to ourselves.
“I think we can get honed in on it better than we are and we’re still able to have success, which I think kind of shows you what the guys are made of in the room and what some of the new guys bring to the table.”
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