Open Thread: Game 1, Colorado Avalanche vs Vegas Golden Knights (6:00 p.m.)

This is a heavy blow to Colorado’s backend and likely means that recently recalled Alex Gagne, Jack Achan, or Nick Blankenburg will see playoff action in the bottom pairing. If any other defenders are still hurt, two of them would play.

With that in mind, a commitment to structure and support will be crucial this evening, as the Golden Knights will absolutely look to find favorable matchups.

I have three keys to a Colorado Avalanche victory:

2. Stay out of the penalty box.

3. Thrive in the environment.

Whenever you have guys that haven’t played much NHL hockey, much less playoff hockey, slotted into your backend, a commitment to the process is vital. The process is the fail-safe when a talent advantage may not exist, and the Avalanche take pride in it. That will need to be shown for the Avalanche to win game one.

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The Avs have made going to the sin-bin a far too common occurrence in the playoffs so far. Combine that with a clear and concise advantage at five-on-five against the competition so far, and you have plenty of reason to play things straight up. Vegas’ special teams aren’t to be tempted.

Ball Arena should be a madhouse tonight, as many fans still don’t like the Vegas Golden Knights after the 2021 playoff series, and, of course, the Avalanche appear plenty capable of winning it all. The Avs-friendly and raucous environment has the potential to deal a heavy blow to Vegas’ confidence.

Projected Lineup:

Gabriel Landeskog — Nathan MacKinnon — Martin Necas
ARTTURI LEHKONEN — Brock Nelson — Nicolas Roy
ROSS COLTON — Nazem Kadri — Valeri Nichushkin
Parker Kelly — Jack Drury — Logan O’Connor

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Devon Toews — Sam Malinski
Brett Kulak — Brent Burns
Alex Gagne — Josh Manson

Scott Wedgewood
MacKenzie Blackwood

It will be Scott Wedgewood back between the pipes for the Avalanche, which makes sense, seeing as he’s lost just one game these playoffs and came in and shut things down in Colorado’s game five comeback victory against Minny.

Vegas Golden Knights

The Vegas Knights have depth, particularly up the middle, and with the Avalanche missing Makar, expect Vegas’ head coach to be pretty active in getting his best skaters favorable matchups against Colorado’s bottom pair.

Torts has brought a lot of security to a team that couldn’t get consistent enough goaltending or results to take a strong hold of their division in the regular season. His arrival has ushered in another era of defensive focus in Vegas, similar to what we saw under Pete DeBoer.

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The Golden Knights present as a team capable of shutting things down like the LA Kings, but while having the talent to cash in on limited opportunities.

Mitch Marner leads all point scorers in these playoffs and has been a consistent performer for the Knights. His matchup and the challenges he will face against this Avalanche team are a much taller task than what he saw in the first two rounds, however.