Western Conference bubble teams: What are the keys to playoff qualification?

Colorado Avalanche

Cap Space: $19.6 million per CapFriendly. WOW! For a team in playoff contention, they have a LOT to work with. I’m not inferring that I think they are going to be buyers at the deadline or anything, but that’s sure encouraging for the future, if they can keep up this recent run.

Points: 53

9-1-0 in their last ten games. WHAT? I don’t think anyone expected that. They went from completely out of contention to a team that is seriously threatening for a playoff spot.

I attribute this partly to the resurgence of Nathan MacKinnon’s career. Furthermore, rookie Alex Kerfoot has had an outstanding rookie year with 30 points through 41 games. Mikko Rantanen is having somewhat of a breakout year, already passing his career high in points. The Avalanche are finally getting some depth scoring, and it looks like that’s all this team needed.

Something they desperately need to improve on is team faceoff percentage. Currently, they sit last in the league with a team percentage of 44.8 percent. Being able to win both offensive and defensive zone draws, especially on the penalty kill or power play, are crucial to the success of a team and undoubtedly have a direct effect on the outcome of a game. As far as who specifically needs to improve their percentage, I look to both MacKinnon (43.7 percent) and Soderberg (43.4). These two take the bulk of the team’s draws, and not having ONE player who is above 50 percent in the dot is a killer. Furthermore, Alex Kerfoot has a percentage of 37.2 and has taken a decent amount of draws with 150, so that is a part of his game that he needs to work on as his career progresses.