The Avalanche spent a significant portion of practice Friday working on their anemic power play, which has failed to convert 22 consecutive chances in the past seven games and is in a 3-for-43 drought in 15 games.

A power-play goal or two would certainly be meaningful this weekend with back-to-back games in Minnesota and Winnipeg as all three teams jockey for playoff spots in the tightly-bunched Western Conference.

It also would help if defenseman Tyson Barrie is available after missing Thursday's game in Detroit because of a hip flexor injury, but coach Patrick Roy said Friday the Avalanche will see how he feels Saturday before making any decisions. Barrie was to accompany the team on the flight to Minnesota, but defenseman Karl Stollery has been recalled from Lake Erie in the AHL as a precaution.

"We're going to protect ourselves, making sure we always have seven 'D' on the team if something happens and we need them," Roy said.

(Roy said goalie Semyon Varlamov will start against the Wild and Jets, and that he never considered using Reto Berra, who hasn't played an NHL game since a Dec. 5 relief appearance in Winnipeg.)

The absence of Barrie and Erik Johnson, who is out with a knee injury, didn't leave Roy with many options to play the point on power plays against the Red Wings. Stefan Elliott, in his first NHL game this season, and Jarome Iginla were used in one pairing, as were Nick Holden and Zach Redmond.

The Avalanche had one shot on their first advantage, three on the second and none on the third when the Red Wings never allowed them to set up.

The Avalanche last scored a power-play goal Jan. 15 in Florida when Holden scored in the third period of a 4-2 win while Cody McLeod was screening goalie Roberto Luongo.

"With EJ out we have opportunities to jump in," Holden said of playing the point. "Our power play isn't good enough now and special teams are such a big factor, so we need to find a way to generate some offense and score some goals on the power play."

"We're not happy about the power play and the players are not happy about the power play," Roy said. "We all agree that our play 5-on-5 is pretty solid -- our neutral zone forecheck, our forecheck, our D-zone coverage, our tracking -- we're playing a good 5-on-5 game. Obviously if we could generate more offense from our power play it's certainly going to help the team.

"We want to make sure we move the puck fast when we possess the puck in our set-up in the O-zone, we want to make sure we see those options maybe faster. But after 20, 30 seconds we have to have two shots. It forces us to compete to get those rebounds. It forces us to compete to get the puck back and restart a new set-up and try to bring more pucks at net. The compete level is what we're going to have to work on in the next few practices."

Roy said after the loss to Detroit that he might consider changing his power-play personnel, but that didn't really happen in Friday's practice.

He used forwards Matt Duchene, Alex Tanguay and Daniel Briere on one unit with Holden and Iginla at the points. The other unit included forwards Ryan O'Reilly, Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon with Elliott and Redmond manning the points.

"Thank God sometimes you go to bed and you reflect on it and the next day you say, 'You know what, I've said all along I was going to live and die with my top players,' and I am going to continue to do that," Roy said. "It would be easy to replace players, but I think sometimes stability and trust is probably the most important thing, and that's what I'm going to do."

The players remain baffled by their inability to produce in 5-on-4 situations. The Avalanche are next-to-last in the NHL on power plays, just ahead of Buffalo.

"I don't have any answers for it," Duchene said. "We're working on battling harder and skating better. When it comes, it's going to come in bunches, but you just have to grind it out until it comes I guess. It's something we just have to keep working on."

Said Landeskog: "We definitely need a shooting mentality and to get guys in front of the net. You look around the league and most power-play goals are shots from the point, shots from angles when guys are in front, rebounds. That's the mentality we need to have. Every loose puck, we have to have two or three guys on that puck and to shoot that puck. If not, the puck's going to be down 200 feet and we have to go back and waste some energy. We expect more, absolutely."



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