DENVER — Horn blares. The music kicks in. The crowd at Ball Arena joins in with the familiar “hey, hey, hey.” It’s one of those moments Avalanche fans know well, especially when Colorado is lighting up the scoreboard at home.

The problem? That same energy hasn’t always followed the team on the road.

The Colorado Avalanche could beat the New Jersey Devils at Ball Arena on Wednesday night, and it still might not mean much in the grand scheme of things.

The issue isn’t necessarily what Colorado does at home. It’s what happens when the team leaves Denver.

The Avalanche opened their recent road trip with a loss to the Philadelphia Flyers, then fell to the New Jersey Devils. Colorado returned home and responded with a convincing 6-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning, only to follow it with a dreadful performance in Nashville against the Predators. That game featured former Avs Jack Drury and Ross Colton, along with former Colorado executive Chris MacFarland.

It’s been a frustrating pattern to watch.

Nobody expected the Avalanche to repeat their historically dominant start from last season, but that doesn’t mean the team’s current habits aren’t concerning. Colorado has been outshot in four straight games. Even in the win over the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Avs were only narrowly ahead in shots, 32-31.

This team has enough offensive talent to score against just about anyone. That isn’t the main concern. It’s how the Avalanche respond when things aren’t going their way.

When the bounces don’t come, when opponents win the battles, or when the other team starts pushing back, Colorado hasn’t consistently shown the response you’d expect from a team with this much talent. At times, the effort has looked flat, and the team has struggled to find its game.

Even when the Avalanche win, opponents are getting too many opportunities. That might not always come back to haunt them, but over time, those defensive issues can become much harder to overcome.

Last season, the power play was a major problem, and the message was to be patient while the team worked through it. Meanwhile, the penalty kill was one of the best in the league. This season, the power play has shown some improvement, but the penalty kill has struggled more recently.

There are always going to be ups and downs over an 84-game season. The concern is how often the same issues seem to show up and how different this team can look from one game to the next.

Colorado needs to find some consistency. It can’t keep looking like one team at Ball Arena and another on the road.

Head coach Jared Bednar recently pointed to the team’s age as one factor in the decision to give players some rest days. That’s understandable over a long season, but it doesn’t entirely explain why the team has looked sluggish at times. Rest can only do so much if the team isn’t executing when it gets back on the ice.

Following Tuesday’s practice, Bednar spoke about the importance of having self-motivated players and referenced former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick.

“I have a lot of trust in our guys. Like, was it [Bill] Belichick that says, ‘we want self-motivated individuals’? I’ve been quoted before that I’m not here to motivate our team,” Bednar said. “That means I’m not going to do it on a daily basis. We’ve got a veteran group of guys that I’ve been with for 11 years. We should think and respond and have the same sort of view or a similar view of what’s going on with our team.”

He added:

“They know what our team looks like. Even this year, they know what it looks like when we’re playing hard, when we’re playing well, and so do I. So that has to be the standard.”

Bednar isn’t wrong that a veteran team shouldn’t need a motivational speech before every game. These players know what it takes to win. They’ve won a Stanley Cup together, and the leadership group should be capable of holding itself accountable.

But there’s a difference between expecting players to motivate themselves and expecting them to solve every problem on their own.

Coaching isn’t just about getting players fired up. It’s also about recognizing when something isn’t working and finding a way to fix it.

Belichick has spoken about this very idea in an interview with Albu Consulting Strategy Management.

“I try to show my players that I have confidence in them and instruct them on how to deal with performance problems. Motivational speeches have a place, but the priority is to do the tangible things first to fix the problem.”

That’s an important distinction. Belichick valued self-motivated players, but he also emphasized instruction, accountability, and addressing performance problems directly. Trusting players doesn’t mean sitting back and hoping they figure everything out.

And if Belichick were coaching the Avalanche, do you really think he’d let the top power-play unit keep going out there after multiple power plays without recording a single shot?

At some point, I have a hard time believing he wouldn’t make a statement by pulling the entire unit. MacKinnon would be the obvious candidate to sit, at least for a shift, if the team’s biggest stars weren’t getting the job done.

Belichick wasn’t afraid to hold even his biggest stars accountable, either. Tom Brady wasn’t above criticism for a bad throw or for failing to recognize an open receiver. The same went for elite playmakers like Randy Moss and Rob Gronkowski if they weren’t running their routes with the urgency and effort expected of them. Their reputations didn’t give them a free pass.

That’s the difference between trusting veteran players to motivate themselves and holding them accountable when things aren’t working. Belichick might want self-motivated players, but that doesn’t mean he’d let poor execution slide just because his players were experienced. If the same mistakes keep happening, there has to be a response beyond hoping the players recognize the problem and fix it themselves.

Of course, Bednar and Belichick aren’t the same coach, and hockey isn’t football. There’s no single coaching style that works for every team. Someone like John Tortorella is known for being much more vocal and demanding, but that approach isn’t necessarily right for Colorado, either.

Still, the Avalanche have a roster built around stars like Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar. Their core helped bring a Stanley Cup to Colorado in 2022, but the team has come up short since.

Bednar also revealed that he didn’t show the team video of its loss to Nashville.

“I didn’t show them any of (the Nashville) game,” he said in response to a question from Avalanche beat reporter Colleen Flynn. “What am I gonna show them? How bad we were? If you don’t win any races, any battles, or any puck touches, I can go through that game and be like: ‘Yeah, structurally we were pretty good, but no one did anything.’”

There’s a fair point in what Bednar said. A coach can draw up a system and explain what needs to happen, but he can’t win every puck battle for his players. If the effort isn’t there, there’s only so much a coach can do.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to address.

Belichick wasn’t successful simply because he expected his players to recognize their mistakes. He demanded accountability and looked for tangible ways to correct problems. Bednar doesn’t have to copy Belichick’s approach, but when the same issues keep showing up, something has to change.

The question is whether that change needs to come from the players, the coaching staff, or both.

Colorado’s leadership group needs to take responsibility, and the players need to be better. At the same time, Bednar has to find ways to get more out of a team that looks lost at times despite having so much talent.

Bednar recently received a four-year contract extension, so the organization clearly believes in him. That doesn’t mean he should be above criticism, especially when the team’s performances raise questions about how it’s responding to adversity.

Trusting your players is one thing. Finding ways to get the best out of them is another.

The Avalanche don’t need to win every game by three goals, and they aren’t going to dominate every opponent for an entire season. Slumps happen. Special teams struggle. Good teams lose games they should win.

But Colorado needs to show that it can recognize its problems and respond to them. The talent is too good for the team to keep delivering performances that leave fans wondering which version of the Avalanche will show up next.

The Devils present another opportunity to get things back on track, but one home win won’t answer every question. Colorado needs to build on good performances instead of following them with another disappointing effort.

The only way to find out is to tune in and see how Colorado responds. The Avalanche host the Devils at Ball Arena on Wednesday night, with puck drop set for 7 p.m. MT.

Will the Avs give their home crowd another reason to get the horn-and-“hey, hey, hey” celebration going, or will the same concerns follow them onto the ice? We’ll find out soon enough.