The Avs need more cow­bell. The 2022 Stan­ley Cup champs right now look like a gold-record rock band with­out a drum­mer. The songs are still killer, but the tempo’s all over the dang map.

“It’s the chem­istry,” for­ward Mikko Ranta­nen said as he leaned back in his lock­er stall at Fam­i­ly Sports Cen­ter Mon­day. “It’s the lit­tle details that we’re lack­ing a lit­tle bit. Exe­cu­tion hasn’t been good (the) last four games — pow­er play, 5‑on‑5, what­ev­er. So I think we just got to exe­cute the game plan better.”

Some nights, they blow the flip­pin’ roof off the build­ing. Oth­ers, you’re reach­ing for ear plugs. Nasty Nate McK­in­non & The Nightrid­ers (7–3‑0) host East­ern bul­ly New Jer­sey (7–3‑1) on Tues­day night, and nobody is 100% sure how the set’s gonna fly.

Will Bur­gundy & Blue faith­ful get the troupe that’s won its last three home games by a com­bined score of 14–5? Or the band of oh-broth­ers who went oh-fer their last three on the road, where they just got dust­ed 7–0 at Vegas and have been outscored 15–0 away from Ball Arena?

“I think there’s still a lit­tle bit of dis­con­nect there,” star defense­man Cale Makar said of the Avs’ Jekyll-and-Hyde ways. “I think whether it’s just us throw­ing a lot of pucks away into areas that we don’t have guys. But … I watched the (Vegas) game back … it didn’t seem like we played as bad as kind of the score.

“It’s easy to say that now, but I think we just have to find a way to low­er some Grade‑A chances. We’re giv­ing up a lot of Grade‑A chances and we’re not get­ting them. So when that’s hap­pen­ing, obvi­ous­ly, it’s going to be a lop­sided game. We need to find a way to min­i­mize good teams like that and capitalize.”

They need loud­er voic­es, stronger voic­es, enforc­ing stan­dards and bound­aries. Gabe Lan­deskog was — and is — a mas­ter time-keep­er, but with the cap­tain rehab­bing, some­body else has to be the bad cop behind the drum kit. Espe­cial­ly on the road.

A lit­tle less tin­ker­ing wouldn’t hurt, either. With five new for­wards mixed in among the top nine, we all knew the Avs prob­a­bly weren’t gonna find a groove before Thanks­giv­ing. But is coach Jared Bednar’s con­stant line-tweak­ing help­ing or hurting?

Per DobberSports.com, the Avs have already uti­lized 11 dif­fer­ent for­ward com­bos this sea­son for at least 3% of the team’s total ice time at even strength. For con­text: Last sea­son, Bed­nar only trot­ted out sev­en dif­fer­ent lines at even strength that went on to receive 3% or more of that ice time.

More con­text: The oth­er 15 teams in the West have aver­aged 7.5 dif­fer­ent for­ward com­bos for at least 3% of even-strength time. Only Seat­tle and St. Louis have tried out as many dif­fer­ent lines as the Avs.

“I don’t know — it just feels like we’re a lit­tle hes­i­tant,” Ranta­nen said. “We’re a lit­tle bit, maybe, pres­sur­ing the stick too much — squeez­ing it.

“I think it’s gonna go away, even­tu­al­ly. But we’ve just kind of got to relax a lit­tle bit and maybe sim­pli­fy the game … (when) everything’s going well, it’s eas­i­er to play a lit­tle more skilled hock­ey. But now we’ve just got to put our foot down and play a lit­tle more like play­off hock­ey. Just dump it in and go get it.”

It’s still ear­ly. The ’22 Avs were 4–5‑1 after 10 games with three road loss­es in their first five away from Chop­per Cir­cle. The ’23 Avs were 5–4‑1 over their first 10 with three road defeats in six tries.

So 7–3 with a 4–3 road record looks like a step for­ward. It’s the 15-zip goal dif­fer­en­tial over the last three tilts that sets off fire alarms.

“If we weren’t get­ting any looks, then we’d real­ly be search­ing for some answers,” offered cen­ter Ryan Johansen, one of the key new­com­ers in ques­tion. “I think the main thing is just a quick reset.”

Chemistry’s an organ­ic thing. Can’t be forced. Can’t be man­u­fac­tured. In a bat­tle of the bands this past Sat­ur­day, Vegas made the Avs look like a bunch of yacht-rock­ing bal­ladeers. The Gold­en Knights forced 11 take­aways and blocked 26 Col­orado shots. It was one of those throw­backs to the spring of 2021, in all the wrong ways.

“When things are kind of not rolling, you’ve got to sim­pli­fy a lit­tle bit and play a lit­tle dirty (type of) hock­ey, just try to get dirty goals and defend your net like it’s your last day on earth,” Ranta­nen said Mon­day. “I think we’ve got to (have) more chat­ter on the bench and try to help it that way.

“We get a lit­tle qui­et at some points when we go down (by four) or what­ev­er, so we kind of get frus­trat­ed … but it’s on us, on the lead­ers — we’ve got to kind of keep the chat­ter going in the room and on the bench.”

A band with too many lead gui­tarists and no rhythm sec­tion might play killer solos. But they’ll even­tu­al­ly get booed off the stage.