DENVER (AP) — The Presidents’ Trophy winner and Stanley Cup favorite suddenly can’t find the net.
Missing star Cale Makar for the second straight game, the Colorado Avalanche blew a late lead in a stunning 3-1 Game 2 loss Friday night to the Vegas Golden Knights, who are halfway to winning the Western Conference as the series shifts to Las Vegas.
It was their first loss in 46 games this season that they took a lead into the third period.
“It stings for sure right now, but tomorrow we’ll wake up, have a meeting, fly to Vegas and regroup,” Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog said. “That’s all you can do.”
For much of the night it looked like the Avs would even up the series after dropping the opener 4-2. Goalie Scott Wedgewood was pitching his first career playoff shutout until surrendering goals to Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev a little more than two minutes apart. Barbashev added an empty-netter with just over a minute remaining.
“I thought just about every area of our game was better besides maybe the power play,” Landeskog said. “And then they scored two perfect shots, so yeah, I liked our game a lot. There’s not a lot of comfort in saying that, I guess, after a loss. But at the end of the day we’ll regroup.”
The Avs know that playing better in Game 2 was of little solace to a fanbase that watched them roll through the first two rounds with just one loss while showing off a deep roster that featured a whopping 17 goal scorers.
Makar, however, got banged up in the last series against Minnesota and hasn’t played in this round. His absence has been felt across the board, on an ineffective power play, through a disjointed offense and discombobulated defensive rotations without their star defenseman who’s officially out with an upper body injury.
“At the end of the day,” Landeskog said, “we’ve got to find a way to score some goals.”
Colorado’s sudden lack of scoring punch has saddled the Avalanche with its first loss of the season when leading heading into the third period. Before Friday night, they were 45-0-0 in such situations.
And it’s threatening to short-circuit their Stanley Cup dreams.
Landeskog agreed that the Avs might have been deflated by back-to-back penalty kills by the Golden Knights when Colorado was clinging to a 1-0 lead in the first half the third period.
“Yeah, maybe,” Landeskog said. “The power play needs to be better.”
The best way to get better? Get Makar back — providing he can take both hits and shots alike.
Colorado coach Jared Bednar bristled when asked if there’s greater urgency now to get Makar back in the lineup with the Avs down 2-0.
“There’s urgency to get him back like since he got hurt,” Bednar said. “But it’s going to be Cale’s decision on when he’s coming back, you know? He’s doing all the work he can possibly do to try to get back as fast as he possibly can. … I don’t make that decision for him.”
With or without Makar, the Avs have their work cut out for them as they try to get back into the series on the road.
“It’s on us now,” forward Logan O’Connor said. “We made it difficult. … We can’t think about winning two in Vegas. We’ve got to start with one.”
___
AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
