Improved goaltending, defensive effort have made Avalanche blowout-proof

Everything was in place for the Colorado Avalanche to get blown out Saturday night in St. Louis.

It was the last game of a road trip where the club didn’t play great at times, but two wins in the first two contests had already made it a success. The Blues were the hottest team in the league and had far more to play for.

And then the Avs went down by four goals before the midpoint of the second period. But, instead of it turning into a rout, Colorado made a game of it before losing 5-4.

It was just another data point from an interesting theme of the 2024-25 Avalanche season — this team just doesn’t get run out of the building very often, and that’s a contrast from a year ago.

“I think it’s a culmination of everything. Just consistency,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Even when we were shorthanded, I thought the guys worked extremely hard. We built pretty good habits with our team. Knowing we had to be better defensively, and then once we added those guys down the middle, on the back end, that’s really helped us.”

The Avs haven’t lost a game by four-plus goals since Nov. 25 at Tampa Bay, an 8-2 drubbing that began with Justus Annunen’s final appearance with the club. That game was the last of an otherwise successful road trip.

As the Avs prepared for Tuesday night’s tilt with Vegas, it had been 56 games since Colorado was blown out. One of the early-season blowouts came at the hands of the Golden Knights, on opening night in Las Vegas.

The Avs were blown out (beaten by four-plus goals) 10 times during the 2023-24 regular season, including four of the first five losses of the season. It also happened twice in the final six games, and then an 11th time in the pivotal Game 4 against Dallas in the second round, the day Valeri Nichushkin was suspended.

Some of them were schedule losses. Some were poor goaltending nights. Avs coach Jared Bednar ripped into the team’s effort after an 8-2 loss to the Blues.

It just hasn’t happened very often this year. And Bednar, notably, has rarely questioned the team’s effort level.

“I think there is a lot of pride in this locker room,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor said. “We always try and compete, regardless of the score. I think that’s sort of the standard we’ve set here.”

Bednar mentioned that finding the motivation to play hard is a challenge right now, given that Colorado is all but locked into the third spot in the Central Division. The effort level has dipped at times recently, particularly early in games, but the club has still avoided embarrassing losses.

What makes the lack of blowouts even more impressive is the Avs’ incredible roster turnover this season. Colorado has been among the league leaders in man games lost to injury and the collective talent/impact of the players missing all season.

The Avs have also made eight trades during the season, completely overhauling the roster. They have used 47 players, a number usually reserved for teams chasing the No. 1 pick in the draft, not the Stanley Cup.

One of the biggest reasons is the improved goaltending from Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. Not only have the Avs not lost by four or more goals since those two arrived 10 days apart, but Colorado has lost by three goals only four times with one of them in net — and all four of them included an empty-net goal against. The Avs lost eight times by three-plus goals in the first 25 games of this season.

Another huge reason is the team’s overall defensive performance. Despite the roster churn, the most consistent aspect of this club has been solid defensive efforts. Even when the goaltending was in shambles during the first third of the season, the defensive work in front of them was statistically strong.

“There are going to be times during the schedule where we just don’t have it,” Avs forward Ross Colton said. “I feel like our goaltending has been amazing. I think we’ve emphasized a lot this year that playing good in the D-zone is going to lead to our offense. We know the skill in here is going to take over at some point.

“It just goes to show the depth that we have. You have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staff and the leaders in this room. We take pride in playing hard every night. We have the skill to score a ton of goals, but with the roster turnover we’ve had and uncertainty at times, we needed to emphasize playing good in the defensive zone.”

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