If the Colorado Avalanche were a football team, the backup quarterback would already have a lot of playing time just four games into this season.
The Avs’ two-game trip to Western Canada this week featured the first loss of the season to the upstart Winnipeg Jets and early-season surprise Stuart Skinner, plus another blowout win against the Calgary Flames.
It’s far too early to draw any sweeping conclusions about any NHL team, but the Avs again look like a potentially dominant offensive team. And the Flames look like a prime contender to win the Landon Dupont sweepstakes.
Here are some observations from a mostly successful trip up north for the Avs, who are off to a 3-1 start with tougher games ahead in the coming weeks:
1. It’s hard not to lead with the third line, which had two more great games on this trip. Jaden Schwartz is tied with Cale Makar for second on the team in points (six). He’s among four guys who are setting the pace with three goals. One of the big storylines this season is how the Avs will replace Valeri Nichushkin, Ross Colton, and Jack Drury up front, and Schwartz producing offense like a healthy Nichushkin would be a great place to start.
2. Fedor Svechkov was in on both goals against the Jets, and added another assist in Calgary. Jared Bednar has compared him to Parker Kelly a couple of times already — a sound defensive player with offensive upside. Colorado has outscored its foes 7-1 at even strength when Svechkov is on the ice.
3. T.J. Hughes had his most impactful offensive game against the Flames, collecting his first career NHL point and a team-high six shots on goal. Hughes is fourth on the club with 11 shots on goal so far and third with 22 shot attempts, behind only Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas.
This was my simple assessment of Hughes after watching him play four times for the Colorado Eagles in the playoffs: Stuff happens at the offensive end when he’s on the ice. After a tough debut, Hughes might be working out how to make an impact at this level.
4. The depth guys are definitely cooking so far. The Avs have collected better than 60% of the scoring chances with six forwards on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick: Schwartz, Svechkov, Kelly, Nicolas Roy, Zachary L’Heureux and Martin Necas. Roy and Kelly have had a lot of success together, whether 11 or 12 forwards are dressed.
5. L’Heureux is off to a strong start. He made his Avs debut in Winnipeg, then got an assist and a fight in Calgary. He’ll be able to tell his grandkids he set up MacKinnon for his first point with the Avalanche. There’s been plenty of focus on L’Heureux’s past and the extra element he might add to the Avs with some of his antics, but his forechecking ability might prove to be his greatest asset. There’s a difference between running around with a lot of energy and effective forechecking. He might be able to blend the two together.
6. The Avs have scored 23 goals in four games. That is the most by any team at this point in a season since the Los Angeles Kings in 1993-94. They have already scored more goals in the first five games of a season since the franchise moved to Denver. It’s hard to nitpick too much given that and the small sample size for anything, positive or negative.
7. If someone told you two weeks ago that the Avs would have scored 23 goals in four games, it’d be pretty surprising if they followed that up with the most concerning aspect of the team so far is a few of the veteran forwards in the top six, right? The one line that has worked the least so far is the second, and that’s already led to Bednar making some tweaks.
Brock Nelson had three points on the power play on opening night, but he has just three shots on goal. He and Gabe Landeskog were the only two players on the ice for more Winnipeg shots than Colorado. Nelson, Landeskog, Artturi Lehkonen and Nazem Kadri have combined for six even-strength points — one fewer than MacKinnon has by himself. It’s very, very early, but it’s something to keep an eye on.
8. The first surprise healthy scratch of the year goes to Sam Malinski. The numbers look solid in his first three games, but Bednar alluded to last year’s breakout defenseman having a slow start in camp and Malinski was defending Kyle Connor as he scored the game-winner in Winnipeg with 60 seconds left. Bednar is definitely more of a “the carrot instead of the stick” kind of coach, but he has switched to the latter periodically with Malinski.
9. The Avs have led by four-plus goals for 46 minutes, 26 seconds this season. That’s 19.35% of the season so far. That’s a lot of garbage time, which will definitely skew some numbers in small samples.
10. There are 58 players who are averaging more time on ice per game so far this season than Cale Makar. The Avs have had one player (Makar) play more than 22:17 in any game. There are 35 players averaging more than 22:17 per contest so far. There are 67 forwards ahead of MacKinnon’s 18:43 per night, including Necas at 19:06.
Blowout wins make it pretty easy for a coach to conserve some minutes for his top guys.
