LAS VEGAS — Knight, Knight.
It is time to put this series to bed.
Holding the equivalent of a 16 at the blackjack table, the Avs impressively shifted the odds in their favor Sunday night before revealing why this city is nicknamed Lost Wages with a second-period gag for the ages.
T-Mobile Arena provided a stage for a character-defining victory. Instead, the talented Avs did the unthinkable, proving Game 2 was not a fluke by falling flat on their red faces again.
Sunday night was worse, a new nadir.
The Avs squandered a 3-0 first-period lead. To Las Vegas. Not the 1977 Montreal Canadiens. Not the 1984 Edmonton Oilers. To Las Vegas? Yes, Las Vegas!
All the Avs had to do was tie a knot and hold on for 40 minutes. Instead, they collapsed, went splat in one of the worst playoff periods in franchise history.
Colorado boasted a 74-1 record when leading by three goals in a playoff game. The Knights were 0-19 when trailing by that deficit. So much for the past predicting the future.
Colorado made Las Vegas look like the Legion of Broom. That is all that is left for the Avs now, showing enough pride to avoid the indignity of a sweep.
Does it really matter at this point?
Only four NHL teams have ever won a postseason series of any kind in any round when trailing 3-0. There is no reason to believe the Avs will pull off a miracle.
Not with Cale Makar compromised — he provided a solid effort given his shoulder injury — and Nathan MacKinnon hobbled.
The Golden Knights are a bigger, stronger team.
But the Avs suffered a foundation-shaking loss because of things that go well beyond how players fill out uniforms.
Blame the MacKinnon right knee injury if it makes you feel better. The Avs were sliding into the abyss long before he blocked Shea Theodore’s shot with his leg in the second period, leaving him crumpled on the ice.
Moments after MacKinnon got hurt, Keegan Kolesar deflected a shot off the pipe, then poked the rebound past goalie Scott Wedgewood to tie the score at 3. If you haven’t heard of him, other than his relatives and Golden Knights’ fans, few have. It was his first point of the postseason, eloquently capturing the gravity of the Avs’ meltdown.
Magicians on The Strip don’t make things disappear this easily.
The common thread in the folding? Defensive breakdowns. And Marty Necas and Brock Nelson remain firmly in the witness protection program.
The Avs looked cooked, done in Denver. But in the hours before the puck dropped, they spoke with confidence about overcoming the sordid history of teams dropping the first two home games in the conference finals.
Why? They were 17-2 in their last 19 road games and won twice in Las Vegas during the regular season. That’s something, right? Nope.
“We won the President’s Trophy for a reason,” forward Logan O’Connor said five hours before the puck dropped. “It’s time to fight for our lives.”
If you haven’t noticed, numbers are irrelevant in this matchup.
The Knights mocked the trends, while the Avs mocked their own fans.
The Avs didn’t need to be better skaters. They needed to be tougher. They needed to put a fist to a face to stop a rally. An elbow to the chops to slow a rush. A hook to place the Knights on their heels.
Instead, the Avs were left with their heads spinning.
Josh Manson (42) of the Colorado Avalanche defends Tomas Hertl (48) of the Vegas Golden Knights during the second period of Game 3 of the NHL Western Conference Final at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, May 24, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
The Golden Knights opened the second period on a power play, and Mark Stone, returning from injury for his first action, scored in 19 seconds.
The place they called the Fortress erupted. The crowd was back into the game. And so were the Golden Knights.
This was the time to make a statement. And the Avs did. With a message so wrong, it is time to wonder how many of these players are the right fit moving forward.
The Avs could not clear the puck, a common theme over the final two periods. William Karlsson scored. It was his first goal. It was also the lone goal of the postseason for Kolesar.
And Tomas Hertl put the Avs out of their misery with the go-ahead shot at the 8:21 mark of the third, pushing the Golden Knights within a whisper of their third Stanley Cup Final in nine years.
Where were the role players for the Avs to shine? I will hang up and listen.
Everything about this loss came with an asterisk. The Avs blew a first-quarter lead. Something they never do. They squandered a second-period lead on Friday, something they had never done.
The Avs were dominant during the season, but no longer resemble that team. They cannot finish. Even when they play well, they cannot sustain it. Talk all you want about the positives, like three starburst goals from Gabe Landeskog, Nazem Kadri and Jack Drury.
They went from great to grate. Again.
Gabriel Landeskog (92) of the Colorado Avalanche kneels behind the goal after taking contact as the Vegas Golden Knights push in transition during the third period of the Golden Knights’ 5-3 win in Game 3 of the NHL Western Conference Final at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, May 24, 2026. Vegas now leads the series 3-0. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post)
It seems unthinkable for a team with this talent. But Colorado is not good enough or tough enough to beat the Golden Knights.
If Las Vegas is “Forged in Gold,” their playoff motto plastered in nearby hotels, the Avs are “Forged in Old.” They look tired, beaten. They didn’t have a shot on goal for nearly 15 minutes in the third period.
With Makar and MacKinnon not themselves, this was the moment for Necas and Nelson to pull their weight. They have been anchors.
Necas had flashes, but still did not score. And Nelson has been arguably the worst player on the ice for either team.
The Avs talked with bravado. The Golden Knights played with it.
“It wasn’t a great first period but we knew we could do it.” Hertl said. “We have done it so many times we never quit. A massive game for us.”
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