Remarkable ability to rally has its limits; coach agrees

EL SEGUNDO, CA LIF.» The Avalanche had come from behind in half its 10 victories heading into Wednesday night’s road game against the Los Angeles Kings.

That’s a huge asset, a product of the explosive attacking talent Colorado coach Jared Bednar possesses, but it’s not the recipe to follow if he’s going to prod the Avs (10-6-4) to just their third Stanley Cup playoffs appearance in nine seasons.

Sunday night’s 4-3 triumph over the Ducks in Anaheim — on Mikko Rantanen’s slap shot with 1.3 seconds to play in overtime — followed course, but Bednar would like to see a divergent path.

“Playing catch-up hockey is losing hockey, I think, in the long run,” Bednar said after the Avalanche’s pregame skate Wednesday afternoon at the Kings’ training facility in Southern California’s South Bay region. “I like the belief system of our team, and we feel like we can come back in games. But certainly playing with the lead makes your job a little bit easier, and you can’t keep spotting teams.

“In recent history, we’ve been a real good starting team. It’s just a little bit (this season) we haven’t come out on the best end of things in the first period. It’s something we keep paying attention to, and we make sure we’re ready when they drop the puck.”

The Avalanche has been ahead after 20 minutes in eight of 20 games, and it has won five of those — but just one since a 4-1 victory a month ago at Philadelphia.

Since then, the team had watched a 4-1 first-period lead slipped away in the 6-5 loss at Calgary on Nov. 1, and a 1-0 advantage over Washington disappeared in Friday’s overtime defeat.

The Avalanche does nearly as well when behind after the first period, with four wins in nine games, including each of the last two.

Boston led 2-0 a week ago at the Pepsi Center, but Colorado scored the last five goals, four in the third period, to romp 6-3.

Colorado scored the last three goals in Anaheim to overturn a 3-1, second-period deficit. That followed late rallies last month to beat New Jersey and Ottawa.

“We’ve found ways (to come back), and obviously we’ve got a lot of character in this room,” said Colorado captain Gabe Landeskog. “We know how we want to play, and we know that we can come from behind and have that mentality that it doesn’t matter if we’re down one, two or three goals. We can come from behind, and we can win games from behind.

“I think it’s a mentality thing, and we’ve had a few games this year where we’re up and the other team scores one or two, and all of a sudden you tighten right up.

“You know what it feels like to be up as well, and there’s never a comfortable lead in hockey.”

Colorado has been at or near the top of the NHL in scoring all season, and its No. 1 attacking line — Landeskog, Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon — has a league-best 83 points.

All three scored goals in Anaheim, and Rantanen holds a onepoint edge, 32-31, on Edmonton star Connor McDavid in the race for the scoring title.