Mark Stone and Cole Smith scored for Vegas and the Golden Knights suffocated Colorado’s high-powered offense to beat the Avalanche 2-1 on Tuesday night for a surprise sweep to make their third Stanley Cup Final in nine seasons.
The Golden Knights will get a break while they watch to see whether Carolina or Montreal emerges from the Eastern Conference Final. Carolina lead that series 2-1.
“Now the real stuff starts,” Vegas coach John Tortorella said. “I consider the first three round playoffs. Now we’re playing for the Stanley Cup.”
It was a crushing end for an Avalanche team that won the Presidents’ Trophy and had blown through the playoffs with an 8-1 record. Chicago, in 2013, were the last team to claim the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season.
Stone scored for the Golden Knights on a lob pass from Brayden McNabb deep in his zone. Stone caught the puck and had a direct path to the net and made the most of it. Smith later tipped in Dylan Coghlan’s shot from the point with 5:45 left for a critical two-goal margin.
Carter Hart stopped 20 shots, coming within 2:03 of his first playoff shutout in six years. Gabriel Landeskog ended that shutout, one of the few highlights of the night for the Avalanche, who went the final 14:23 of the second period without a shot on goal and more than 22 minutes with just one shot.
“It’s empty,” Landeskog said. “It always is, whether you lose in seven, six, five or four [games], it’s an empty feeling. It sucks. There’s no other way to put it.”
Mackenzie Blackwood, making his first start in the series, gave the Avalanche a chance to win with several dazzling saves en route to 24 saves overall. His best stop came late in the second period when he lunged to glove a power-play shot from Pavel Dorofeyev.
The journey to the Cup Final isn’t quite the Cinderella story of the Golden Knights team who made the Stanley Cup in their debut season in 2018, but Vegas’s success this time around was far from expected.
The Golden Knights faced the possibility of not making the playoffs for just the second time in franchise history when management fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led the club to the 2023 title, with eight games left in the regular season.
In came Tortorella, who validated the controversial decision by leading Vegas to a 7-0-1 record to close the regular season before playoff series victories over Utah and Anaheim. Then the Golden Knights faced an Avalanche team on a roll and without any sign of slowing down. At least until they faced Vegas.
Colorado coach Jared Bednar searched for answers against the Golden Knights, even changing goalies on Tuesday. The Avalanche also dealt with injuries to their top two players this series – reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar and Hart Trophy finalist Nathan MacKinnon. The Golden Knights had their own injury issues, winning the first two games of the series without Stone.
