BEDNAR: “THIS TEAM FEELS DIFFERENT TO ME”
Coach Jared Bednar stands convinced his Avalanche team is starkly different than the squad that landed in the NHL’s dregs last season. He has seen it behind closed doors.
After a disgusting 7- 0 loss at Las Vegas last Friday against the expansion Golden Knights, captain Gabe Landeskog called a team meeting to hash out the issues.
The Avs have no room to mail in an effort. If Colorado wants to follow up a last- place season with a return to the playoffs, it will happen by grinding out every game.
The team meeting, it seems, had some effect. The next night, the Avs ran past the Chicago Blackhawks 6- 3.
“The way you respond after losses, it’s more important,” Bednar said. “Our leadership group had a lot to do with it. In my time here, our leadership has taken some hits. ‘ Are they capable of leading their team?’ And this and that. I can’t look past last year— we weren’t good enough at it last year as a coaching staff or leadership group.
“But this team feels different to me.”
The Avs entered this month a game above even, but they had the same mark last year before it all fell apart and Colorado finished 22- 56- 4, the worst mark in the NHL. How they nip off a losing skid before it becomes a disease will be key to any turnaround this season.
“With Landy especially, and some of the other leaders, the way they handled that loss and what they were saying, how they got the group together, says a lot about us trying to turn the page and be a different group,” Bednar said. “I have to give them credit.”
Veteran center Matt Duchene, though, is not ready to claim success. This is an Avs team that scored 34 goals and allowed 34 through 11 games, a neat definition of average.
“You can’t lose 7- 0 and then come around the next night and win 6- 3,” Duchene said. “That shows the vastness of our game right now, when we’re on and when we’re not. You don’t make the playoffs one game over .500.”
Extended stay. Bednar kept 22- year- old defenseman Nikita Zadorov in the doghouse Thursday after benching him following that blowout loss to Vegas. The coach made Zadorov a healthy scratch again against Carolina, along with fellow blueliner Chris Bigras.
Bednar instead used the same lines he played against Chicago. The Avs, Duchene said, are looking for carry- over from win to win.
“Consistency is the biggest thing for us right now,” Duchene said. “We show what we can do sometimes, then we show what we are when we’re not all in the same direction. We’re not the type of team that can have two or three guys take the night off and still win.
“If everyone is going, we’re a good team. If everybody is not, then it’s not good. If we can find that consistency, we’ll be a good team.”