Rantanen’s hat trick spoiled, Georgiev benched in ugly Avs opener

Usually when a player from the Colorado Avalanche gets a hat trick, they win the game.

That didn’t happen on Wednesday night in Las Vegas, as Mikko Rantanen finding the back of the net three times wasn’t nearly good enough in an ugly 8-4 loss to open the 2024-25 NHL regular season.

The story of the evening was starting goaltender Alexandar Georgiev getting pulled after allowing five goals in the first two periods. Backup Justus Annunen relieved him for the third and didn’t do much better.

In fact, through two periods, Georgiev had just 11 saves compared to five goals allowed. That’s not a winning formula, and brought back memories of Georgiev’s horrible end to last regular season and the nightmare in Winnipeg in Game 1 of the playoffs.

The Avalanche actually took a 1-0 lead early, as Rantanen found the back of the net about halfway through the first period. Unfortunately, Vegas scored just 27 seconds later to make it 1-1.

That was the theme of the game, as Colorado could never sustain any momentum.

Before you could blink, it was 3-1 Golden Knights after the first period. Georgiev gave up a couple of questionable tallies, something Avs fans are used to, and the race to stage a comeback was on.

Rantanen made it 3-2 in the second period on the power play, but Vegas scored less than two minutes later to go up 4-2. Casey Mittelstadt narrowed it to 4-3 late in the frame, and again the Knights responded. Victor Olofsson got his second of the evening just moments before the intermission and it was 5-3 Vegas after two.

That’s when head coach Jared Bednar made the decision to put Georgiev on the bench and go with Annunen. Rantanen earned the hat trick with about seven minutes to go in the third to get it to 5-4, but of course Vegas made it 6-4 just 90 seconds later. Whenever you thought Colorado was going to close the gap and tie things up, they couldn’t do it.

Eventually, the game got out of hand, with the Knights adding two more late including an empty-netter.

It’s only one out of 82, but people are going to overreact because it’s the first. And there was a lot to react to, most of it negative. After a long summer, this wasn’t the start that Avalanche faithful imagined. The team had plenty of firepower on offense, but could never get a key save or defensive stop when they needed it.

Reinforcements should be coming eventually in the form of Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin and Gabriel Landeskog, but those aren’t happening tomorrow.

And in the meantime, none of those guys play goalie. If the season opener was any indication, it could be a mediocre couple of months before the calendar flips to 2025.