Jared Bednar kept it simple on what needs to improve for the Avalanche’s power play

The Colorado Avalanche were not able to find the back of the net on the power play in Wednesday's loss, and head coach Jared Bednar knows what needs to improve

BY TRENT FINNEGAN

Apr 24, 2025, 9:09 AM

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The Colorado Avalanche struggled mightily on the power play in Wednesday night’s 2-1 overtime loss against the Dallas Stars. After losing Game 2 in heartbreaking fashion in overtime, head coach Jared Bednar and the Avalanche had a chance to rewrite the script when starting the overtime period with a man advantage, as the Stars were called for a four minute, double minor high-sticking penalty.

The Avs had over three minutes of power play time to open up the extra period after creating a couple decent chances in the 40 seconds before the buzzer sounded on the end of the third period. It almost took them two minutes to get the puck into the zone and get the offense set up. Not to mention, the best scoring chance of the entire power play was a shorthanded opportunity going the other way for the Stars after the Avalanche gave the puck away.

In total, Colorado went 0-for-6 on the power play, and now sit at 13th in power play percentage (15.4%) among the 16 playoff teams. They have struggled with Dallas’ physicality on zone entries, have had sloppy turnovers and have not been able to consistently set up the offense.

After Wednesday’s loss, Bednar was asked what his teams needs to do to improve the power play.

“Everything,” Bednar said.

During the power play that resulted from the double minor penalty at the end of the game, the Avs attempted seven shots, missing all of them. On the other three power play opportunities throughout the night, Colorado had one, one and three shot attempts, respectively. That is not enough for an offense with this much firepower, and the physicality of Dallas has a lot to do with it.

“That’s what you can expect, not a lot of room out there on either side of it, right,” Bednar said. “Someone’s got to make and have an exceptional effort, five guys all on the same page, everyone doing the right thing and then you’ve still got to be able to beat their coverage in order to create scoring chances.”

An important aspect of last night’s power play was the struggles of Jonathan Drouin. He wasn’t playing his best hockey on Wednesday, and it showed on the power play all night long. However, Bednar kept him on the first power play unit the entire night instead of tweaking his lines, and it ended up hurting the unit. In the playoffs, in a seven-game series, the team who responds to adversity and makes the better adjustments will always win, and the Avalanche weren’t able to adapt to the physical environment in time.

The Avalanche now find themselves in a 2-1 hole in the series despite leading for over 90 minutes of game time. On the other hand, the Stars have led for just over one minute, but are in the driver’s seat and have regained home-ice advantage. Game 4 is set for Saturday with puck drop at 7:30 p.m. from Ball Arena.