Avs Looking To Jumpstart Offense

The Colorado Avalanche is just looking for one goal. After that, the team hopes it will translate into many more and get its offense back on track.
Colorado returned home late Tuesday night from an 0-2 road trip in which it only tallied once, with that coming late in the third period during a 6-on-4 man advantage on Sunday afternoon in Winnipeg. The Avs have struggled to find consistency in their offense for most of the season, and while they've had other deficiencies in their game as well, the players and coaches' attention is on finding more ways to find the back of the net.

"I think it's a mental thing. I think it's having a good mindset, just being ready to shoot pucks," said Avalanche forward Rene Bourque. "We got to have the puck to be able to score. Just competing on loose pucks more along the boards, in our zone, coming out clean. I think at the end of the day, we're not scoring those tic-tac-toe goals. We just need to throw pucks at the net, and I think it's just being prepared to shoot and having a mindset of trying to funnel pucks there as much as we can tonight."
Avs head coach Jared Bednar agrees with Bourque's assertion and said a couple dirty, ugly goals, such as on rebounds or redirections, can give his team more confidence.
"I think too many times we're forcing plays, looking for the perfect play, the pretty play," Bednar said. "And lots of times when it comes down to it, our best chances are coming from just throwing pucks to the net, getting some bodies to the net. We have to find a way to do that more often. Now that's managing the puck through the neutral zone, make sure we're playing with real good pace and executing and learning to do that."

Colorado will try to accomplish that against a young, upstart Toronto Maple Leafs squad this evening at Pepsi Center before going on the road immediately afterward. The Avs have a one gamer in Chicago on Friday prior to the three-day NHL holiday break.
The Avalanche is in a tough stretch right now as its lost four in a row, with its last win coming against the Maple Leafs on Dec. 11 in Toronto. In that contest, the Avs gave up too many shots as Semyon Varlamov forced to make 51 saves, but the team did a good job of keeping a lot of those chances to the outside and letting its goalie have clear vision lanes to make stops.
Bourque said the Leafs players' relentlessness on the puck comes from the hard work instilled in them by their coach, and Colorado needs to match that effort to have success this evening.
"They're a very skilled team, and we have to be prepared to play good defense," Bourque said. "They're good down low in the corners, they have a lot of small, skilled guys that are fast and quick down low. And they take advantage of their opportunities. They're a young team that is on the up rise, we just got to outcompete them. If we do that, we'll give ourselves a good chance."
Another area that could jumpstart the Avs' offense is the power play.
Colorado has not nearly been good enough in the special teams category, as its currently ranked 22nd overall in the league (15.7 percent) and 28th on home ice (12 percent). The Avs have had two recent games in which the lack of production on the power plays has hurt them; they had six chances in a game that was within one goal for the most part against Florida last Friday and had five opportunities--including four in the third period--in Tuesday's 2-0 loss at Minnesota.

Bednar said his players aren't pleased with the lack of success on the man advantage because they know they have the talent to be good at it.
"Power play especially, getting set up and getting into the zone has been a problem," Bednar said. "It feels like we're working too slowly. We have to get some pucks to the net and get dirty there. And 5-on-5 is no different.
"The way we're struggling offensively 5-on-5, we need [the power play] to be real good every night, and that's what we're trying to drive out of our group. I feel like when we don't have success on the power play, that our team gets a little more frustrated."
Many of the Avalanche players have family in town this week with the Christmas holiday this weekend, and to make sure his their focus is in the right place, Bednar gave his team a day off on Wednesday.
Bednar didn't want them to worry about getting to practice the day after a tough road trip and go through the same routine of dissecting the same mistakes. Instead, Bednar wanted them to individually reflect on what happened against two divisional opponents, turn the page and be ready to work against the Maple Leafs.
"There is only one way to work out of it, that's work through it," Bednar said." You just can't throw your arms up and give up. You got to keep trudging along and find some way to make a play."

COLBORNE IN TOP SIX

After being out for four games mainly due to a lower-body injury, Joe Colborne made his return to the Avalanche's lineup Tuesday in Minnesota playing mostly a bottom-six role.
He'll be on one of the Avs' top forward groups this evening as the 6-foot-5, 221-pound center will begin the game on a line with Matt Duchene and Rene Bourque.
"I think I can bring quite a bit to this line," Colborne said. "Dutchy has probably been our most consistent producer. Bourqie has been finding the back of the net throughout the year, so for me, just play my game, be hard to deal with below the tops of the circles and make sure I get pucks to the net."
Colborne, like Bourque and Duchene, does his best work in front of the net, which goes with coach Jared Bednar's attempt to get more goals of the "greasy" variety to ignite Colorado's offense.
"We're not scoring, so I think Coach is just trying to mix things up," Bourque said. "Joe is a big body, he can take pucks to the net. He can take it down low, and he can make plays when he has time. We're just trying to do everything we can to generate some more offense."

PROJECTED LINEUP

Gabriel Landeskog - Nathan MacKinnon - Mikko Rantanen
Joe Colborne - Matt Duchene - Rene Bourque
Blake Comeau - Carl Soderberg - Jarome Iginla
Andreas Martinsen / Mikhail Grigorenko - John Mitchell - Cody McLeod
Fedor Tyutin - Tyson Barrie
Nikita Zadorov - Patrick Wiercioch
Francois Beauchemin - Cody Goloubef
Semyon Varlamov
Calvin Pickard