Ten months ago, Ivan Ivan was a revelation for the Avalanche. A few months later, he was an afterthought.

With a clean slate heading into a new season, he’s extra motivated to prove his 40-game NHL stint was no fluke.

It’s hard to even fathom how Ivan’s 2024-25 season took such a downturn. For the majority of his time with the Avalanche, he was remarkably consistent, playing smart hockey that often earned him praise from coach Jared Bednar. A slight dip towards the end of his run with the Avalanche, combined with an injury, got him demoted to the AHL after the calendar flipped to 2025.

Despite a brief call-up in January, he never found that mojo again.

“I had to handle it a little better,” he said of his demotion. “I think I learned from it, and it’s a good thing it happened so I know what I had to work on in the summer.”

With the Avalanche, Ivan scored five goals in 40 games. In the AHL with the Eagles, he notched just three in the 45 games he suited up for. Ivan told The Denver Gazette he was dealing with some things off the ice that he was trying to battle through, but he wasn’t looking to make excuses.

He knows he needed to be better.

“It was a mental battle, for sure,” Ivan said. “After playing 40 games, then getting sent down, it is hard, especially once I got used to playing up (in the NHL). It’s a little different. Guys are better skilled and follow the systems better. In the AHL, it’s a little bit of run-and-gun. As a pro player and a young guy, I got to be able to switch the styles.”

Bednar, who often showered Ivan with praise last season when he was up with the Avalanche, didn’t mince words when talking about Ivan’s disappointing AHL numbers.

“He scored more in the NHL than he did in the American League,” Bednar said. “That can be a good thing if he’s playing in the NHL, but if he goes down, he’s going to have to make sure that he’s the guy that we’re calling up. When you have a roster like we do, there’s not a lot of openings. I’m not going to decide it, (MacFarland) is not going to decide it, their play is going to decide it, ultimately.”

The past is the past, now. A new year means a fresh start for everyone, including Ivan. He’s looking to take advantage of it.

He had a solid showing in Colorado’s first preseason game against the Utah Mammoth and practiced with the NHL group on Friday, centering a line with Joel Kiviranta and Matt Stienburg. Despite a tough finish to the year, he’s still on Colorado’s radar, battling with guys like Zakhar Bardakov for the fourth-line center role.

To make things easier, the organization was clear on what he needed to work on before he went home to the Czech Republic for the summer.

“The feedback, I would say, is the consistency wasn’t there,” Ivan said. “I would say I had a good game in the AHL, and then the next game, I wasn’t playing like myself. Maybe I had too big of expectations for myself for every game, which is not great to expect to score every game. This summer was good for me to reset.”

Focusing on the mental side of the game, Ivan cleared his head. Then, his phone rang. It was the Czech national team. With this being an Olympic year, he learned he was very much on their radar, and he was invited to attend their orientation camp.

Just like that, he had even more motivation to get back to what made him successful the first half of last year.

“It was nice this summer, after the rough second half, to get this new impulse from the Czech national team that I know they want me, that they’ll be watching me,” Ivan said. “If I play good, I know I can be there and I can compete with these guys.”

While his primary goal is to make a name for himself in the NHL, representing your country at the Olympics will also be on the forefront of his mind.

Not a bad secondary goal to have.