Too little, too Nate.
“I’m worried, to an extent,” Avalanche fan Jesse Klus told me as we huddled at the glass in front of Section 140 at Ball Arena, less than hour before Colorado got jumped by Vegas, 4-2, in Game 1 of the Western Conference Final. “But I have faith. We have a team where if one guy goes down, it’s the next-man-up mentality.”
The next men came.
The top lines took too darn long.
In the Avalanche’s first postseason game without defenseman Cale Makar since 2023, Colorado’s other stars were MIA until the final 5 minutes.
By the time vintage Nathan MacKinnon joined the party, the Avs trailed 3-1 and burgundy and blue faithful were streaming into the aisles and out of Ball Arena.
WIth 2:20 left, No. 29 spun his defender into a soft pretzel at the right post and fed a cutting Gabriel Landeskog to get the Avs to within a goal. Only a Vegas empty-netter dashed any dreams of a repeat of Game 5 of the Wild series.
But with no Cale, the Avs paled. Lousy shooting. Spotty puck management. Inconsistent back checks. For the middle 40 minutes of regulation, it felt as if Vegas knew the series started Wednesday and the Avs were waiting until Friday to turn the engine over.
It’s a series now.
The Golden Knights had better juice, better goaltending, better special teams and a better plan. They also better utilized the dark arts of playoff hockey, winking their way into some friendly calls.
Somebody needs to give Vegas’ Rasmus Andersson an Oscar. Best Dive In a Conference Finals.
With 5:44 to go, Rose Colton pushed Andersson out of the Vegas crease, and the Golden Knights defender went to the ice with, shall we say, more than a little drama.
A flop is a flop, and it got Colton a roughing call and Vegas an extra man.
Which immediately paid off. The Golden Knights got a second goal on the board with the extra man when Vegas winger Mitch Marner wrapped a pass behind his back to teammate Pavel Dorofeyev just before Logan O’Connor sent him into the boards. Dorofeyev lost Brent Burns in front of the Colorado net and Scott Wedgewood lost the puck, as a point-blank wrister pushed the Golden Knights’ lead to 2-0 and pushed Ball Arena’s collective blood pressure up about 30 points.
Midway through the third period, Vegas had two goals and an assist from its top two lines. The Avs had goose eggs.
“(It’s) impossible to replace Makar, of course,” ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro told me prior to the puck drop. “But if we’re talking one game, that’s survivable.
“I certainly think if (Makar is) out longer-term, or the bulk of this series, it would be a huge advantage, of course, for Vegas. This feels like a massive opportunity for Vegas (Wednesday).”
They took it. The Avs made Vegas goalie Carter Hart work for it in the second period, outshooting the visitors 6-1 in the first 6 minutes of the stanza. But if Hart wasn’t pulling a puck out of the air, a Golden Knights player was beating Colorado attackers to loose biscuits in front of the crease, then sweeping them out of danger.
Avs D-man Sam Malinsky isn’t Makar, but who is? Without Cale, it was hard not to miss a presence that’s usually everywhere on the ice — defense, power play, penalty kill, the works.
But it was felt the most on Wednesday at the blue line in the offensive zone. When Vegas doesn’t have a generational sniper to worry about, they could pack the slot and the crease the way NBA defenses could collapse on Nikola Jokic in the paint.
And nobody could beat Hart from distance, or even set up a friendly tip, over the first 40 minutes. O’Connor came the closest, but his wrister 5:11 into the contest doinked hard off the left post.
Hart, to the chagrin of a packed Ball and most of America, controlled the crease and the grease from the jump. A salty Artturi Lehkonen popped Golden Knights defender Brayden McNabb about 58 seconds into the contest; McNabb returned the favor as the horn expired for the first intermission by slugging Nazem Kadri to the ice behind the Vegas goal.
In between, it felt a lot like the Kings series, only against bigger bodies, tighter checks and quicker sticks. The Avs and Golden Knights both fired off 10 shots apiece in a scoreless opening stanza, as the hosts forced more Vegas giveaways (10) while the Fightin’ Torts racked up six blocked shots. At least two or three Vegas defenders seemed to collapse into a protective wall in front of Hart whenever the Avs sent the cavalry.
Before Wednesday night, the Avs had only played one postseason game since 2020 without Makar. That was in 2023, Game 5 of that ill-fated Seattle first-round series at Ball Arena, when the Colorado D-man was suspended for an interference penalty incurred in the game prior. The Kraken held on for a 3-2 win and would win the series in Denver four days later.
Nobody asked for a sequel. Jesse least of all.
Klus is 33. He’s been an Avs fan for 26 years, rooting from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, some 971 miles north. Jesse flew in Wednesday morning, dropping $1200 in Canadian dollars on plane fare and $700 for Wednesday’s ticket.
Daughter Braeleigh digs Cale even more than Jesse does. She gave him a bracelet with “MAKAR” spelled in tiny beads last November in Vancouver, outside the Avs’ hotel.
‘I’ll trade you a bracelet for a jersey,” Makar told her. He pulled out a white No. 8 sweater, signed it and handed it over.
“(The Avs) kind of went up and down like waves,” Jesse said Wednesday. “When we had the momentum, we were all over it. Then it dropped off for a while, then back up.”
And your faith?
“Still heavy,” Klus said. “But the effort needs to come heavy like they did in the first period — hard, fast, ready to compete. Thirty-eight shots isn’t bad. But we could’ve had plenty more. And hope to goodness’ sake Cale comes back.”
Amen. Sometimes, it’s just not your Knight. But if you don’t get some juice from the big boys, and fast, it won’t be your series, either.
