The Colorado Avalanche looked just like the team to beat within the Stanley Cup Playoffs through the primary two rounds, dripping only one game to get to the Western Conference Finals. Nonetheless, they didn’t play to that standard on Wednesday night, because the Vegas Golden Knights marched into Ball Arena and dominated in a 4-2 win to take a 1-0 series lead.
After a scoreless first period, the Knights raced out to a 2-0 lead within the second period and prolonged it to 3-0 lead early within the third period while the Avs struggled to generate high-quality possibilities. Even when Colorado cut the deficit to simply one late within the third, Vegas responded with an empty-netter to seal the deal.
After the sport, Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon didn’t hold back about his team’s lackluster performance within the loss.
“We just weren’t sharp,” MacKinnon said. “Execution was poor from everybody. Gotta be sharper than that. … I assumed were did lots of damage to ourself, guys sort of all over the place. Execution like I said must be higher, and clearly we’re able to being quite a bit higher than that.”
After starring in the primary two rounds of the playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings and the Minnesota Wild, MacKinnon was kept quiet by the suffocating Golden Knights defense in Game 1. He recorded just three shots on goal and notched a late assist on a power-play goal by Gabriel Landeskog. The Avs were a minus-one for the sport when their star and his top line was on the ice.
Colorado has lost home-ice advantage on this series with this defeat, but they will not be sweating it heading into Game 2. Colorado was 5-0 at home within the postseason coming into this game and could have all of the arrogance on this planet that it will possibly get back on level terms before heading back to Vegas.
With star defenseman Cale Makar potentially getting back from injury in Game 2 on Friday night, MacKinnon and company know that their best hockey could thoroughly be ahead of them on this series.
The Colorado Avalanche looked just like the team to beat within the Stanley Cup Playoffs through the primary two rounds, dripping only one game to get to the Western Conference Finals. Nonetheless, they didn’t play to that standard on Wednesday night, because the Vegas Golden Knights marched into Ball Arena and dominated in a 4-2 win to take a 1-0 series lead.