Avalanche Are Running Out of Road
Colorado's season is dangling by a thread, and the man who usually saves them is watching from the tunnel.
Cale Makar sat out Game 2 of the Western Conference Final with an upper-body injury. And the Avalanche lost 3-1 to the Vegas Golden Knights at Ball Arena. That's a 0-2 hole in a best-of-seven series.
History says that kills you.
The streak is dead, and it took the whole identity with it
Colorado came into Game 2 having gone 45-0-0 when leading after two periods this season.
Forty-five. That's not a stat. That's a brand. The Avalanche built their whole reputation on being the team you couldn't catch if you got behind them. Then Vegas scored three goals in the third period and flipped the script anyway.
It wasn't just a broken streak.
It was a broken identity.
The math is brutal. Since 1982, road teams that started 2-0 in the conference finals are 13-0 in the series. Thirteen for thirteen. Colorado has to win four of the next five games. And three of them have to be on the road at T-Mobile Arena, where Vegas went 31-10-0 this season. The hole is deep and getting deeper.
Vegas is doing this without Mark Stone
Here's the part that makes Colorado's collapse harder to stomach. The Golden Knights are missing their captain.
Mark Stone hasn't played since early in the second round, and Vegas keeps winning anyway.
Jack Eichel was the difference in Game 2. He tied it 1-1 at 9:15 of the third period, then set up Ivan Barbashev for the go-ahead goal at 11:22. That's two goals in a 2:07 window. Barbashev added an empty-netter to seal it.
Eichel has been hunting all series. And his line with Barbashev is the reason Vegas walks into Game 3 with a stranglehold on this series.
Colorado head coach Jared Bednar noted the Stone situation directly.
He's right to. Vegas isn't just winning. They're winning short-handed, and that's a different kind of problem for Colorado to solve.
What Makar's absence actually costs
The Avalanche list Makar as day-to-day. That's the press release version. The real version: he hurt his right arm or shoulder in Game 5 against Minnesota on May 13, returned to that game, and hasn't played since.
Two missed games in the conference final tell you everything about how the team actually views this injury.
Devon Toews can absorb more minutes.
He's been playing 25:59 a night, and he can push to 28 if needed. But Makar averaged 24:51 per night with 79 points this season, third among all NHL defensemen. The power play suffers. The breakout suffers. The transition game, the thing that makes Colorado so dangerous when they have the lead, all of it downgrades without him on the ice.
Jack Ahcan and Nick Blankenburg have been filling in. Combined they played under 17 minutes in Game 2. Neither is close to Makar's impact, and Vegas knows it.
What to watch Sunday night
Game 3 goes Sunday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas (8 p.m.
ET, ESPN). Vegas has won six straight playoff games at home. Eichel's line is rolling. Stone is still out, but the depth hasn't cracked.
Colorado has one job: don't let this become a series. The Avalanche won the Presidents' Trophy this year. They have the horses. But you can't win a series from the floor, and right now they're on the floor.
The question is who pulls them up.
Sportsnet - Golden Knights stun Avalanche with Game 2 victory