How the Avalanche are underutilizing Nathan MacKinnon on the power play

The Colorado Avalanche, a team many expected to be much better than they've been out of the gate, are doing something supremely silly at five-on-four so far in this young NHL season. Underplaying reigning Calder Trophy winner Nathan MacKinnon on the power play not only hurts Colorado's chances of winning games, it arguably stunts the development of the team's most valuable asset. 

MacKinnon was nothing short of astonishing in his rookie season. The explosive teenager appeared in all 82 games for the Avalanche and managed 63 points. One area in which he particularly excelled was the power play. 

Among forwards who logged at least 150 minutes at five-on-four last season, MacKinnon was the 25th-most-efficient point producer in the league. He was also the 12th-most-efficient power-play goal scorer and finished in the top 20 in five-on-four shot rate. He managed this at 18 years old.

While MacKinnon spent much of the season on the second power-play unit, he took his place on Colorado's first unit in the postseason. He was reasonably expected to become a fixture there for the next decade, but that hasn't quite come to pass.

Instead, MacKinnon, who is goalless through the first nine games of the season, is fifth among Avalanche forwards in power-play ice time per game and firmly entrenched on the second unit. 

Now that might be excusable if the Avalanche's first unit was firing on all cylinders, but it's not. The Avalanche are the fourth-worst team by five-on-four shot rate and are capitalizing on just 14.3 percent of power-play opportunities after finishing in the top five in power-play conversion rate last season.

Here's a screencap to illustrate precisely how the Avalanche power play is underutilizing a singular offensive talent at five-on-four. Matt Duchene, who typically handles the puck at the right-side half wall when the Avalanche are set up, is about to force a cross-ice feed to Alex Tanguay.

(Courtesy: TSN)

Tanguay is a solid offensive player, but, as theScore's resident hockey expert and former professional player Justin Bourne said, the "forehand one-timer while skating down might be hockey's most difficult shot." 

On this sequence, Tanguay misses the puck, which rimmed off the boards and went down the ice as the Jets went off two on one. 

What's worse, that formation is actually an improvement on what the Avalanche were trotting out at the start of the season. Here's a fun shot of Colorado's setup in mid-October against the Toronto Maple Leafs. 

(Courtesy: TSN)

Again, you've got Duchene handling the puck, Jarome Iginla in the high slot, and left-handed shooter Nick Holden as the point man in the left circle.

There's a reason some of the most feared right-handed shooters in hockey - from Alex Ovechkin to Tyler Seguin - occupy a spot at or around the top of the left circle on the power play. Holden's drawing a lot of attention from Maple Leafs penalty-killers in the above cap, but he's barely dangerous. If MacKinnon was in that spot, you'd be cooking with oil. 

Evidence suggests that Patrick Roy is something of a tactical genius, but, in MacKinnon, the Avalanche have a killer option that could make their top power-play unit more potent. Instead of using him, it seems like the Avalanche are intent on just banging their heads against the wall.

(Stats sourced from stats.hockeyanalysis.com, nhl.com)