At what point does a slump stop being a slump and instead just becomes the norm?
That's the concern for the Colorado Avalanche when it comes to their second line center Casey Mittelstadt. The 26-year-old was fantastic in the playoffs after coming over at the trade deadline last season, and got off to a red-hot start this season with 18 points in his first 19 games.
That start seems like a distant memory at this point.
Since the middle of November, it's been nothing but a struggle for the Minnesota native. Over his past 26 games, he has one goal and eight points. It's not like he hasn't been given plenty of opportunities to snap out of it, either. His ice-time has stayed consistent, and he's spent time on the top power play unit, but the results haven't been there.
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The coaching staff might be starting to run out of patience.
Over the final two periods of Colorado's 3-2 overtime win against the Rangers, a game where they trailed most of the night, Mittelstadt saw his role severely reduced, as he played less than seven of the remaining 44 minutes. He spent the third period centering the fourth line, a spot he may find himself in again on Thursday against the Oilers if Wednesday's practice is any indication.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said many times that Mittelstadt must figure things out on his own. The organization and staff still support him, but they have to go with who's playing well, especially as they head into a stretch where they start to face more and more of the top teams in the Western Conference.
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"Creating offense here, recently, moving forward, it's going to be tough." Bednar said. "We're playing all deep teams now. You've got Edmonton, Dallas, Minnesota, Winnipeg, all on pace for over 100 points each."
"We need everybody firing on all cylinders, and his game hasn't been as good as we feel like it can be."
The concern isn't just about the lack of production. The numbers show that the issue is a little bit deeper than that.
Over the last 26 games, Mittelstadt is the only regular player on the Avalanche to have an expected goals-for percentage below 40%. That means that he's been spending a bit too much time defending and not enough time at the other end of the ice.
If the process was good and the production wasn't there, this could be looked at as just a slump, but both pieces have been missing for a while. It's hard to produce if you aren't spending much time in the offensive zone to begin with. If the Avalanche are going to make a run at another Stanley Cup, they need Mittelstadt to regain his form, and fast.
They know he can do it, but this has been going on a bit longer than they had hoped.
"Once you kind of get into (a slump) a couple of games, as a coach, you want players to come out of it," Bednar said. "Casey's doing the right things. He's in the gym working right now. Whatever he has to do, we're there to support him in it, but we've got to get a little bit more out of that line, especially on the offensive side of things."
It might not matter in the spring how good Mackenzie Blackwood is at one end if there's only one line providing consistent offense at the other.