The Avalanche know what needs work and are doing just that — addressing the issues in order to get to their identity.
Cale Makar and Bowen Byram were missing from Tuesday's practice — which head coach Jared Bednar said both are "banged up from the other night." With the two defensemen questionable for Wednesday night's game against the St. Louis Blues, Bednar said the team discussed where it's at mentally but expect the Blues to be amped up to play them.
"They'll have their keys that they want to apply to their game against us and we have ours against them," Bednar said. "For us, no different than we've prepared for any other game."
The Avalanche played well to start the season undefeated but still aren't where they want to be. Consistency and balance have been issues the team has dealt with through the last two losses.
"We focused on a handful of areas of our game where we need to be good in order win and we haven't put the whole package together yet — even in our wins," Bednar said.
The Avs' momentum swing in their last games could be attributed to the new players still finding a fit with the team and systems, which can be a frustrating process. Bednar said they put pressure on themselves to contribute to the team and have sometimes been trying too hard to do too much.
"I don't want them feeling like they're not contributing because they're not on the scoresheet every night," Bednar said. "And I feel like some of them do — so we'll work through that. Help them as much as we can, they'll help each other as much as they can. I think it's a matter of time before you see things with our new guys start to gel a little."
One new guy in particular who is feeling the frustration of not putting up numbers is Jonathan Drouin. But he said it would be much worse if he weren't getting valuable scoring chances, at least.
"It's frustrating but it's about baring down, make sure you're still getting looks and still involved," the 27-year-old forward said.
While Drouin started the season on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, he's recently been playing on the third line with Ross Colton and Miles Wood. But he said the shift is nothing new to him in his career so it's not affecting his game.
"We play as a team. If you want to be getting high minutes — everyone wants to play 20 a night but it's not going to happen ...," Drouin said. "It's about being effective and try to do something where the coach has trust in you, maybe you'll get a couple more minutes. Everyone has a role ... just got to play your game, play your system."
The Avalanche are leading the Central Division — as of Tuesday — ahead of the showdown with their division rival, who has nearly half the points they do. But with the possibility of Byram or Makar not playing, that could change the stakes a bit.