LAS VEGAS — A week ago this Colorado Avalanche team was halfway home to immortality.
A week later, the Avs are just going home.
The Vegas Golden Knights completed one of the more improbable sweeps in Stanley Cup Playoffs history Tuesday night, sending the Avalanche into the offseason with a 2-1 victory in Game 4 of the Western Conference Final at T-Mobile Arena. Colorado went from being the odds-on favorite to win the Stanley Cup to falling eight wins short of that goal in a span of seven days.
“Disappointed, humiliated,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor said. “I think to a man just weren’t good enough, not a single guy was the whole entire series.
“I think we let down coaches, each other, fans, management. Itap on us as players to be far better than we were. The results speak for itself. Just tons, lot of disappointment right now.”
This Avs team began this season with a historic 31-2-7 run. They had won 13 of their past 15 games entering this series, including an 8-1 romp through the first two rounds of this tournament.
And then, in a figurative blink of an eye, the months-long march to a second NHL championship in five years was over.
“It’s empty, always is whether you lose 7,6,5, or 4,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. “I mean, it’s an empty feeling. Yeah, sucks. There’s no other way to put it.”
This Vegas Golden Knights team fired its coach with eight games to play in the regular season because it was in a dogfight just to make the playoffs.
Now, John Tortorella and the Golden Knights will play for a second title in four years. The 2023 champs handled the 2022 champs with a level of ease no one could have seen coming.
“Right now, itap heartbreak, disappointment, frustration, a lot of different things,” Avs center Brock Nelson said. “I mean the group, I don’t think there was any quit in the group. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We ran into a good team, a good goalie. We weren’t able to get it done. It sucks.”
By Game 4, the Avs were clearly at a physical disadvantage. Star center Nathan MacKinnon was able to play in this game despite getting injured in Game 3. Valeri Nichushkin was not, after missing the final 22 minutes Saturday night.
A few other key players, including star defenseman Cale Makar, Artturi Lehkonen, and Sam Malinski, have all either missed games in this series or logged less ice time than usual, likely because they were playing through injuries that kept them out of games in the second round.
Last season ended in stunning fashion, with ex-Avalanche star Mikko Rantanen’s four-point third period in Game 7. Somehow, the Avs found a different, yet equally unfathomable way to lose.
The questions, both short- and long-term, about where the Avs go from here will be plentiful.
“I feel like this is probably the most frustrating one that I’ve been part of in the postseason,” Nelson said. “Just given, the year we had, the group, how much everyone put into it to give ourselves the best chance. To have it come to an end so abruptly, I don’t know … it doesn’t really feel real right now.”
Mark Stone gave Vegas an early lead in this one. The Golden Knights captain got behind the Colorado defense and Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb flipped the puck over everyone to him. Stone caught the puck just before the Avs’ blue line, went in alone and scored his second goal in as many games after missing the first two contests of this series with an injury at 4:42 of the opening period.
It was the second shot Mackenzie Blackwood faced in his first appearance of this series. He made his first start of the conference final and third of this postseason run after Scott Wedgewood got the nod in the first three games.
Blackwood was outstanding for the Avalanche after allowing the early goal. He was a one-man show at one point during the second period as Vegas dominated play and pushed to extend the lead. Blackwood made two highlight-reel saves during a Vegas power play and stopped multiple mini-breakaways in the middle period as well.
“Itap freaking hard not to play for so long and come into a big game,” Blackwood said. “But you know I just said (expletive) it and go play the best I can and give them the best chance to win and just battle.”
Cole Smith made it a 2-0 advantage with 5:45 left in the game. The Avs struggled mightily to create chances for about 20 minutes before Smith directed a Dylan Coghlan shot past Blackwood.
Vegas built a 3-0 lead in Game 1 and held off a late Colorado rally. The Avs failed to hold a 1-0 third-period lead in Game 2 and then a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes in Game 3. Each loss was more shocking than the last.
Colorado was 45-0 this season when leading after two periods before Game 2. It was 52-0 when building a multi-goal lead before Game 3.
“Yeah, it happened fast,” O’Connor said. “I think we let Games 2 and 3 slip away from us. Super uncharacteristic from our group to give up the leads like that, especially in consecutive games. Drifted away from the game plan, they made us pay their opportunistic off our mistakes. Like I mentioned, I don’t think a single guy in this locker room played to the standards that we expect.
This Avs team once felt inevitable, but the past week shattered that.
MacKinnon sat in front of reporters after Game 7 a year ago and said, “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
That was a familiar feeling Tuesday night in Sin City.
“Obviously, it (expletive) sucks no matter how you do it,” Blackwood said. “I think losing like that stings a little more. Yeah, thatap going to be pretty frustrating. We are going to have a tough pill to swallow.”
