When the official lineup sheet was handed out just before Tuesday's Colorado Avalanche game against the Florida Panthers, Brandon Yip's name had a line through it. Not for any reasons pertaining to ill health. Despite scoring a goal in Saturday's game with Tampa Bay, breaking an eight-game scoring drought, Yip's play displeased coach Joe Sacco enough to make him a healthy scratch against Florida. A player whose strong rookie season lumped him in with the rest of a highly regarded young core of forwards, Yip's sophomore campaign has not gone as well. In 24 games, he has six goals and 11 points, with a minus-3. Apart from the numbers, though, what has concerned Sacco is what he called a departure from Yip's playing style of his rookie season. 'When he was a big part of our team, he was a distraction to the opponent. He was kind of a thorn in their side,' Sacco said. 'As a result, when he played physical, when he played hard, he got results. He got chances to score and he buried his chances. I think that he's gotten away from that this year. 'I've talked to him about it, and he knows. But we'll see, maybe he'll be back in there (Friday night against the Atlanta Thrashers).' Yip, a 6-foot-1, 180-pound right wing, scored 11 goals and 19 points in 32 games for Colorado last season. A shoulder injury late in March caused him to miss a month, and he struggled some offensively after returning. But he had a good playoff series against San Jose, with four points in six games, and he signed a two-year contract with the team over the summer. Expectations were high, but Yip now finds himself struggling to get out of the coach's doghouse. 'I'm obviously going through a tough time. A healthy scratch is not what you want to be,' said Yip, 25. 'It's what you do in times like this and how you respond, so in my next opportunity I'm going to go in there and try to be better.' Yip developed something of an agitator reputation last season, leveling plenty of big hits, with a bit of a cocky persona on the ice. The native of British Columbia knows he has to have a little 'sandpaper' to his game to be effective. 'It's something I definitely need to get back to, be a little grittier and harder to play against,' Yip said. 'Obviously, that's part of my job and I have to take it upon myself to be that way.' It's not just Yip who isn't playing with enough aggressiveness, Sacco stressed. The Avs come into Friday night's contest 0-1-3 in their past four games, against an Atlanta team playing with lots of swagger. 'For me, it's about us having more energy in our game, more passion, more desperation,' Sacco said. 'Those things have been a staple of who we are, and we've got to get back to that.' 