There are several areas of concern for the Avalanche amid a stretch that’s seen it win once in six games.
A couple of key forwards are not producing at expected levels. Several forwards aren’t scoring enough at even strength. The power play has gone dry. And coach Jared Bednar has expressed displeasure with the types of scoring chances the team has allowed of late via turnovers and mistakes.
That’s a lot to sort through, and some of the issues are more concerning than others. But Mikko Rantanen playing his way out of an uncharacteristic slump could be the Avs’ simplest path back to their winning ways.
Rantanen has not scored a goal in the past nine games, and he doesn’t have a point in the past three contests.
“You try to learn from the games you play and when you go through a slump a little bit, it takes mental toughness,” Rantanen said Monday morning ahead of the Avs’ game against Calgary at Ball Arena. “You can’t get down on yourself, because then it’s over. You’ve got to try and reset. Sometimes you get frustrated, but you can’t let that get into your game because then it is hard to come back from that.
“It takes a lot of the mental side to try and reset before every game. I don’t really switch too much, just try to learn more. Like what can you do better to maybe get the puck more and be more effective.”
This is the longest stretch of Rantanen’s career without a goal since he had two similar streaks in the 2017-18 season. He went nine games without one early in that season, then 10 in a row in late January/early February.
Rantanen went four games without a point in October last season, but he still finished with career-highs in goals (55) and points (105). He’s had other stretches in his career that were short on goals, but still high on assists and general impact.
Before the game Saturday night against Philadelphia, Rantanen wasn’t creating as many chances as he typically does, beyond not scoring any goals. Bednar moved him to center at the start of the game against the Flyers, but eventually moved him back to the wing next to Nathan MacKinnon and Valeri Nichushkin.
Rantanen finished the game with six shots on goal, his second-most of the season. Natural Stat Trick credited him with eight scoring chances, which was a season high. It felt like a step in the right direction, even if the streak wasn’t snapped.
“You can’t be thinking about the past too much because tonight is a new chance to play a good game,” Rantanen said. “It’s tough. It also rubs you the wrong way mentally, but that’s when good players, great players, you’ve got to stick with it. You can’t fold, you can’t quit because nothing is going your way. And then sometimes when you’re on a hot streak, sometimes you don’t even play that well and then you get two goals off your (butt), basically. It goes like that sometimes.”
Moving Rantanen to center bumped Ryan Johansen to the fourth line and Fredrik Olofsson out of the lineup. Johansen actually ended up playing more in the game than he had in any contest since Nov. 15. He also collected his second assist of the year, and his first at 5-on-5.
The lineup has been in flux in part because of key players being absent, but also because Bednar continues to tinker and try to find combinations he likes … at both ends of the ice.
“I think we have the depth, but we do have some guys that are struggling,” Bednar said. “We have a lot of guys that haven’t scored in quite some time at 5-on-5. So I have to look at chance generations and chance suppression, not just the goals. Our numbers on the creation side of it over the course of the year have been good, even really good actually in a lot of areas.
“It’s the defending side that is hurting us. Now we’ve got to look at it and make sure we have responsible lines so we can play all four of them.”
