It turns out the Colorado Avalanche needed more than one player to replace Mikko Rantanen’s overall impact.
That was the plan from the beginning, and no slight to Martin Necas. The day Colorado traded one of the best and, at the time, most popular players in franchise history, general manager Chris MacFarland said one of the objectives was to make the roster deeper.
While Necas has been nearly a like-for-like replacement at even strength as the right wing on Nathan MacKinnon’s line, the Avs have famously struggled on the power play for parts of the nearly 12 months since Rantanen was dealt away. Colorado has tried several players in Rantanen’s old spot, on the right flank opposite where MacKinnon typically is in a 1-3-1 setup.
It turns out the Avs tried their best option earlier this season, but it took a while to get back to him and for things to begin to click. That guy is Brock Nelson, a player who would have been much harder to trade for in March and retain in the offseason on a three-year contract if Rantanen was still here.
“He’s a big part of it,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “(A) center, can take the left-side draws, helps on the breakouts — he’s making all the right decisions over on that side. Mikko is a special player, and in that spot on the power play he’s probably one of the best in the league, if not the best over there. But you have to adjust. Now we’ve got a little bit of a different threat. We’ve got the right shot with Marty.
“We’ve got the pieces to make it work and they have the right mentality. We’ll just keep working on it and they’ll keep growing together. Now that we’ve kind of got this set, it looks good and hopefully they can keep expanding off what we’re doing.”
The irony of Colorado’s well-documented struggles is that from the day Necas arrived until the end of last regular season, the Avalanche had the No. 1-ranked power play in the NHL at 32.2%. But then it broke at the most critical time of the year, and was a huge part of why Rantanen and the Dallas Stars defeated the Avs in the opening round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Assistant coach Ray Bennett was let go. Dave Hakstol was hired. With Nelson re-signed, Brent Burns added and other impact guys healthy, this season began with plenty of optimism and more power-play options than this club has had in years.
As the Avalanche stormed to the top of the league standings with one of the greatest first halves in NHL history, Colorado dominated everyone and everything … except on the power play. It remained broken, often the lone source of consternation after wins and an easy scapegoat to point at after a few of the far in-between defeats.
When the Avs woke up on the last day of 2025, their power play was sputtering along at 15.5% — good for 28th in the NHL. Just an unfathomable thing, given the talent available and how excellent this club has been at nearly everything else.
There are signs of life, though. Two weeks is a blink of an eye in a long season, but the Avs have scored six power-play goals in the past seven games. They are 11th in the NHL at 24.0% in that span, and tied for the sixth-most goals scored with the extra man.
“I like what we’re doing right now,” Bednar said. “There was a big meeting last week. We’ve changed some things around, got the guys on the same page, shared a bunch of ideas and just kind of laid out the structure that we’d like to be in and what we’d like to do.
“I like the focus of our guys right now. They’re all on the same page. … It’s trending in the right direction, the right way, but you want to see it be dangerous every night, and that’s to be determined.”
There haven’t been any major structural changes, but Nelson returning to the top unit in Rantanen’s old spot has made a much greater impact this time than he did early in the season. Nelson has scored five of those six power-play goals in the past seven games.
MacKinnon and Cale Makar have both assists on all five goals. That has a familiar feeling.
Nelson’s goals have also felt a bit like playing Rantanen’s greatest hits:
– One-timer from Makar, near the right faceoff dot
– Tip-in of a MacKinnon shot in front
– Tic-tac-toe from Makar and MacKinnon, a down-to-one-knee one-timer
– One-timer from MacKinnon, low-right circle
– One-timer from MacKinnon, in the slot after a Nelson faceoff win
All he needs is a deflection from just to the left of the goalie. Nelson having this type of impact for the power play has been seismic.
MacKinnon, Necas and Makar are always going to handle the puck the most, which means the puck is going to spend a lot of time on the left side of the offensive zone. When the Avs haven’t had a credible threat on the far side, opposing teams have swarmed Colorado’s right-shooting stars.
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“I think all the time, even if you just go through a couple games skid, they’re going to come at you,” Bednar said. “Most teams, I’m assuming, they’re pre-scouting your last three games, special teams are probably going back to five or even maybe a little bit more. If you’re struggling over that time period with some pressure, and one team has success (others will copycat that plan).
“I also think it’s just the way the penalty kills are trending too. Teams are getting more aggressive, us included, and it’s working. If you’re going to make a play, you’re going to have to make it around that pressure and make it quick and the next guy’s coming. … I think you have to expect that. I think our guys over the last couple of games have done a nice job sort of working around that, working quickly and getting more into attack mode — coming to the net, converging to the net, instead of skating away from it and being too perimeter.”
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