Avalanche lose first home playoff game this year, in 1-0 series hole to Vegas

The Colorado Avalanche likely weren’t going to win every playoff game this year at Ball Arena.

But they picked a tough time to drop their first one at home of the postseason.

The Vegas Golden Knights came to Denver and took Game 1 of the Western Conference Final by a final score of 4-2. It’s the first time in these playoffs the Avs have trailed in a series. Colorado was 5-0 through two rounds in the Mile High City.

And the start of the third period basically summed things up. The Avalanche had a power play, desperate to cut the deficit to 2-1. Instead they couldn’t convert and then some bad luck struck.

Defenseman Sam Malinski had a shot blocked and it went directly to Knights defenseman Ben Hutton who was serving the penalty and coming out of the box.

His initial shot was saved by Colorado goalie Scott Wedgewood, but Brett Howden knocked the puck down with his hand then got a stick on it to find the net.

Down 3-0 early in the third, the juice had been sucked out of the building, but Game 5 against the Wild flashbacks came into play.

Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin got a goal with a little more than 14 minutes left. It’s a big one for his confidence, as Nichushkin only had one tally all postseason to that point — and it was an empty-netter.

Then on the power play deep into the third period, Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog made it 3-2 off a pass from Nathan MacKinnon with 2:21 to go. It also happened with Wedgewood on the bench and Colorado in a 6-on-4 situation.

It looked like the Avalanche might tie it 3-3 on a shot from MacKinnon, in a similar spot to his heroics against the Wild, but it wasn’t meant to be. Vegas would add an empty-netter from Nic Dowd with 45 seconds left and that was all she wrote.

“We weren’t sharp, our execution was poor from everyone. Gotta be sharper than that,” MacKinnon said in the locker room postgame. “We had chances, they didn’t do a whole lot either. Was kind of a nothing game. Good team but we did a lot of damage to ourself. Execution needs to be better.”

Nathan MacKinnon says the Avalanche weren’t sharp and that it was kind of a nothing game from both teams. Said execution needs to better. pic.twitter.com/I3Wq34afOp

— Will Petersen (@PetersenWill) May 21, 2026

The middle period saw the first two goals and both went to Vegas. Avalanche center Brock Nelson had his third premium chance on the evening with about eight minutes to go in the second but couldn’t convert. He then lost an edge and the Golden Knights took the puck the other way and scored the first goal.

Dylan Coghlan beat Wedgewood through the five-hole and that made it 1-0. It’s a shot that Wedgewood would probably want back.

Then, there was some controversy.

Colorado forward Ross Colton was called for roughing against Rasmus Andersson of Vegas. It looked like Andersson flopped on the play to exaggerate the contact from Colton, but the refs bought it. Colton skated to the box by himself.

Moments later on the power play it was Golden Knights winger Pavel Dorofeyev making it 2-0 off a beautiful pass from Mitch Marner, earning his 12th assist of the postseason.

The Avalanche couldn’t solve Vegas goaltender Carter Hart for the first 40 minutes despite peppering him with 25 shots. He finished the contest with 36 saves on 38 shots, an impressive showing.

And the first period was marked by a number of chances that didn’t go for either team.

Avalanche forward Logan O’Connor had two dangerous ones, including on a shot that beat Hart clean and rang off the post. Nelson, who only has empty-net goals thus far in the postseason, also had two solid looks and Nazem Kadri almost buried one on the power play near the intermission buzzer.

On the other end, Wedgewood made two monster saves including one on a Vegas breakaway. Despite being scoreless, it was an entertaining frame of hockey between the two teams left in the West.

But right now the better squad looks like the Golden Knights. The Avalanche missed superstar Cale Makar in a big way and his status for Game 2 will be heavily monitored over the next 1.5 days.

That’s not a must win on paper, but Colorado really doesn’t want to go to Las Vegas in a 2-0 series hole.

No one said it’d be easy to win a Stanley Cup, but even emerging from the Western Conference is now going to take a comeback, winning four of the next six games. Or maybe even four of the next five or four in a row.

The Avalanche are talented enough to pull it off, they just need to turn the page quickly — Friday night will be here in a hurry.

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