Avalanche make SHOCKING Move... This has Major implications

It has finally happened, as the Colorado Avalanche have made a coaching switch for their power play, bringing in former Canucks assistant coach Brett McLean and letting Dave Haxtell go to greener pastures in ASU, finally making the decision that everyone had been asking for for the longest time, which was something has to give on this power play. I think the players are going to have to be punished more significantly, which I still think they should be or they need a switch up on the coaching staff and one of those things have given the Avs now have a new power play coach welcome into Avalanche Digest everybody happy to have you here as always if you're new here don't forget to hit that subscribe button and today we are going to be taking a look at everything involving this new situation but i want to ask you all let me know in the comments down below how are we feeling about the avalanche making a coaching switch are we just saying yeah took them long enough that's me personally or are we saying this isn't even an upgrade I still want to see more and that's what I'm leaning to I'm not going to make any large sweeping generalizations about this coaching change but let's get into the news here and really talk about who Brett McLean is what he can bring to the Colorado Avalanche and what desperately needs to change for their power play to be good. So with Dave Haxtell, formally it got announced this morning that he was officially joining ASU as their head coach for the Sun Devils hockey program. A much needed change for I think both organizations, both the Avs and ASU. ASU after the crap storm they had with that one player getting injured, still being in the hospital, really tragic situation altogether. Hopefully Haxtell can come in and fix that program. He's always been a commendable NCAA coach. I don't want to dog on him too much except for the fact that this news was announced earlier in the week we made a video about it we knew that this was a thing that was coming i don't know why this took so long to get finalized if the Avalanche wanted to keep him on for the last two Dallas Stars games why what did he provide a value in that game whatsoever i just why waste the time why was there was all the rush in the world just to get him out of here but good luck in ASU hopefully this works out well for everybody he didn't get to have he didn't have to get fired or unemployed he still has a job but now let's talk about the new face in town in Brett McLean so Brett McLean was just hired as the assistant coach right after it was announced that Dave Haxtall was going to be joining ASU so it was clear that the Avalanche had this plan Elliot Friedman when he first announced that Dave Haxtall was going to join ASU even said Brett McLean is a face that the Avalanche likes so it was very clear he had the inside track from the start I don't know why and we'll kind of get into talking a little bit about him and his potential ties to the Avalanche organization in the past here but just some initial reactions right here Mark Modrzejewski is happy he said it was a great hire and just kind of talking more about this coach here this comes from a Really Sports tweet the Colorado Avalanche have hired former Avs player Brett McLean as their new assistant coach replacing Dave Haxtall so Brett McLean did play for the Colorado Avalanche in the 05-06 season so a little bit of history there with the Avs he was the former coach of the Iowa Wild and just recently was the Vancouver power play coach so he spent last season overseeing their power play which ranked 14th in the NHL now some of you might see that and immediately say this is just going to be the same problem he doesn't have any good history I would wager and kind of retort to that saying that Vancouver with all of the lack of talent they had on that roster with Quinn Hughes leaving halfway through the year that being 14th just knowing how much of a dumpster fire that roster was worst NHL team by far last season I actually think that's pretty commendable I would like to see what he can do with much more talent on the roster like the Avs do and as a former hockey player himself hopefully he knows how to talk to some of the harder personalities not naming names Nathan MacKinnon and be able to get him to play a system which actually makes your power play good just kind of looking at some reactions around the league though let's get into what some of the community is saying although i've seen this sentiment echoed a lot this comes from avalanche forever i personally don't know much about Brett McLean as a coach but change is desperately needed in regards to the power play a stacked team with guys like MacKinnon, Maccar and Necas shouldn't struggle so drastically to score goals with an extra man it should be automatic and i completely agree with that i would say i don't know if there's a single other nhl team out there with this lineup of some of the best skaters in the nhl not forwards not raw talent obviously Oilers have something great going on over there with McDavid, Draisaitl and Bouchard but just for the pure raw skating talent alone the potential of movement, the potential to confuse teams on the power play I don't even think that there's a better one two three than MacKinnon McCarron in net, this power play should at least be top 10 and not be struggling for quite honestly the last three seasons like it has been, so I 100% agree with that there was no excuse for it to be this bad but another complaint or another good opinion that I saw brought up was from Katie Bartlett said is he a fresh face with fresh ideas or just another yes man to the system that has been naming the Avs horrific power play time will tell and I 100% agree with this I think that's completely true and a 100% valid criticism how about this is who is Brett McLean is he just going to sit there and say whatever to anything Nathan MacKinnon wants to do exactly like Dave Hakstol did and that seems to be the real problem is I think everyone knows at this point Nathan MacKinnon is the real power play coach and the lack of accountability the lack of consequences put on him has probably been the number one thing holding this power play down. There needs to be a situation where he just needs to get benched I don't know why this coaching staff has been so cowardly to do that or to not play the first unit immediately. If the first unit immediately is bleeding shorthanded chances for you they should not be put on the next power play. You should start unit two. The Avalanche just refused to do that in this last Dallas game. The shorthanded goal Dallas scored against the Avalanche was the sole reason that they even had life in that game in the first place in a game that they really had no business bringing to overtime in the first place so that was yet another problem for the Colorado Avalanche and it needs to change there needs to be more consequences I've seen it a little bit already with how Ben Nara has been willing to put out the first the second unit more quickly than he was last year they need to be out there more they need to start the power play more than the first unit this first unit needs a jump and at this point we're just doing the definition of insanity by repeating the same thing over and over again so hopefully with Brett McLean he can come in he can be the coach that everyone needs the Avalanche to be he can have that voice he can be understanding he can understand that players need their own creativity to express their talents but at the same time keep them accountable to a system this is what i'm hoping he can do but only time will tell i wanted to show something else to you because really this Avalanche team has been doing pretty good and set all levels except the power play i mean this is the shot metrics at 5v5 in case you guys don't know anything red or orange is good it's where a lot of volume is coming from the bigger dots as well in the blue is where they're shooting from too so you're getting a lot of shots in front of the net right between the circles exactly all in the dangerous areas you've got some shots from the point here at screen your 5v5 offense is the best in the league you are amazing at it if you're the Colorado Avalanche you don't have any complaints with that then you look over at the power play shot metrics and this is just pathetic i mean you have no scoring from your first unit since the entire year actually the only goals you've scored on your power play that the first unit has been out there for has been on the five on three just do not have any type of advantage it seems on the five on four and that's just unacceptable you see where the majority of these shots are coming from and they're from the one-timer perimeter spots which i like i like that the avalanche have opened up more they're shooting more definitely than they were last year so i like that they're also using both sides of the ice a lot more the left and right side but as you can see the middle of the ice here still remains unused The only big dot you see right in front of the net is Nazem Kadri, unfortunately, who just can't bury one right now. So he's actually driving the net, and I do like him on that right side slash goal line spot. But as you can see, the middle of the ice just is not being utilized whatsoever. I've talked a lot about what I think the configuration of the actual personnel should be on the power play, so I shouldn't dive into that so much. Long and short of it is get TJ Hughes off of this power play. stop with that nonsense put big Brock Nelson on it he's been much better he's been revving up he's been scoring more goals he's been a good bumper player his entire career throw him in the middle of the ice these shot metrics will improve I guarantee you but that is for Brett McLean to do in case you're watching that is my advice for you but yeah I mean we take a look at this power play here and the Avalanche are currently tied for 15th it is actively getting worse ever since the Avalanche have got that one game in the beginning of the season against the LA Kings where they scored four power play goals three of them by the way on the second unit the Avs just have only scored one goal on the power play since then it is actively declining it is getting worse other teams are lapping them especially where they shouldn't be I mean the Seattle Kraken are you kidding me so no it's just not good enough everyone knows it's not good enough I don't want to keep repeating myself and drastic change needs to happen and I hope this coaching change could be one of those it's definitely a consequence so hoping that can change but just to take a look at the rest of the schedule here the Avs have plenty of opportunity to test out and really help this power play i would have preferred this be at the beginning of the season i don't know why the avalanche wasted time with Dave Hackshaw if they were just gonna kind of immediately be like hey you should probably look for a different job six games into the season i mean that's kind of stupid to me i think that if you had actually had a full training camp with Brett McLean if you had revved up the season correctly said this is what we're going to do with the power play that'd be great but you wasted time with Dave Hackshaw saying well we don't want to fire the coach again we already did that already with um oh my god i can't even remember his name he played for the islanders and got fired from there too because he's terrible um his name it starts with a b it's escaping me but yeah so then you go into this camp you waste more time and now you're starting from square one when the season has already began but that said you look at the quality of opponents here you've got the Philadelphia Flyers the Devils which are kind of all over the place the Nashville Predators the Calgary Flames you have opportunity to bank some good wins against some opponents which are a bit in the lower tier here not to mention of course Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay are a little bit better there so you do have some quality competition mixed in as well and overall I think this is a good schedule for the rest of October to get right but that is going to do it for this video thank you all so much for watching let me know in the comments down below what you guys think about this entire new power play coach situation I will see you in the next one and bye