A year after sweeping changes were made behind the bench to fix a struggling power play, the Colorado Avalanche are once again confronting the same uncomfortable reality as the Olympic break approaches.

Last season, the Avalanche fired Ray Bennett following continued power play struggles in the playoffs. With just over two months remaining before this year’s postseason, Colorado not only hasn’t improved in that area—it has regressed, now tied with the Utah Mammoth for the league’s worst power play.

Victor Olofsson, who joined Colorado this offseason after spending last year with the Vegas Golden Knights, said the coaches are doing everything they can, but execution ultimately falls on the players.

“We’re the ones out there trying to do it, so it’s up to us, obviously,” Olofsson told The Hockey News. “The coaches, they give us everything they can, but we got to execute and bear down and make some good plays.”

The 30-year-old acknowledged that the team’s recent stretch likely hasn’t helped matters when it comes to the power play.

The January 3 comeback win over the Carolina Hurricanes cemented the Avalanche as the first team in NHL history to suffer just two regulation losses through 40 games. But through 54 games this season, Colorado is starting to look more human, having lost seven of its last 10 while navigating a demanding schedule and injuries to several key players.

“The power play’s tough. When you’re struggling, it’s hard. You can’t really force it to be better; you just got to trust your instincts and make good plays and maybe sometimes keep it a little more simple. Maybe get a greasy one. It doesn’t have to be the prettiest play.”

Head coach Jared Bednar, however, disagreed when asked whether the team needed to simplify its approach.

“The process is good 5-on-5 even offensively, but there’s an element of competitiveness and work that’s involved,” he explained. “We haven’t scored easy in some of these games even 5-on-5 on some of our chances. I think we did enough last night against the Detroit Red Wings to score one or two and win the hockey game. We did not. It goes that way sometimes. I think we’ve run into some hot goaltending on some nights. I think we haven’t been great defensively some nights. When it comes to the power play, I think it’s much more involved than that.”

Meghan Angley of Guerilla Sports followed up by asking how players have been receiving some of the difficult conversations surrounding the power play.

“It’s been good,” Bednar added. “Someone asked me last night, ‘Is the team down?’ Sure. At times it’s down, and we’ll try to get them back altogether and get back on the same page and give them something they can grab onto when it comes to the power play and what we can build off of it, and then they’ve responded with some good power play games.

“Again, I think it’ll ride the roller coaster a little bit, but I think we’ve gone through the frustration and worked through it and turned the page multiple times now, and it’s not that it’s not going to creep in because I want to have success on it. But it’s a 5-man unit, 5-man process. I think the better we are connected as a 5-man group, the more success we’ll have. We just need to put a couple in the back of the net and let it go from there.”

The Avalanche (36-9-9) will face the San Jose Sharks (27-23-4) in their final game before the Olympic break at Ball Arena, with coverage beginning at 7 p.m. local time.