If you believe that the Colorado Avalanche are just a healthy Cale Makar away from leading the NHL Western Conference Finals series with the Las Vegas Golden Knights, you haven’t been paying close enough attention. This poor showing is about much more than the absence of a single outstanding player.
Certainly missing your best defenseman (and the NHL’s) for the first two games – and having him limited in the third contest – is a tough thing to overcome, and maybe Makar’s presence on the Avs’ blue line would have been a difference-maker in the close, Game 2 defeat. But regardless of who’s been on the ice for the three straight losses, the Avs haven’t measured up. The President’s Trophy winners were solid favorites to win this series and move on to play for the Stanley Cup. But for some reason, all the talent that’s been on the ice hasn’t gotten the job done. This could end up being a four-game sweep for the Golden Knights. The absence of Makar has certainly been a factor, and a limited Nathan MacKinnon was in Game 3, as well. But it’s taken a lot more than those two things to shift this series so dramatically.
Even while the Avs were the heavy favorite coming in, this is a Las Vegas team that began playing great after firing well-regarded head coach Bruce Cassidy with just eight games left in the season. They brought in well-traveled head man John Tortorella to take over, and under his new management, Vegas rolled into the postseason. To date, they’ve won 18 of their past 23 games, including all three in these Conference finals. Tortorella’s Knights have the look of a team with another Stanley Cup championship in their not-too-distant future.
The Avs, meanwhile, the team that led the NHL with 121 regular-season points (nine better than the next best team) and entered this playoff series with just one loss in their first two series, look like they’re simply overmatched.
With or without Makar, this hasn’t been about talent. There’s no question that Colorado came in with the better roster. So why aren’t they playing better?
Here’s a simple but perhaps telling fact: In their history, the Colorado Avalanche have won three Stanley Cup championships with three different head coaches. They won their first one at the end of the 1995-96 season (their first in the Mile High City) with Marc Crawford behind the bench. After an early round exit during the 1998 playoffs, Crawford resigned almost 26 years ago to the day. He was replaced by minor-league coach Bob Hartley, who guided the big club to the 2000-01 Cup title most remembered for enabling Hall of Famer Ray Bourque to hoist the Cup for the only time in his career.
Hartley was replaced in December of 2002, and after cycling through four different coaches and some difficult seasons on the ice, Jared Bednar was hired to replace former Avs great Patrick Roy in 2017. It wasn’t a quick fix, but by the end of the 2022 season, the Cup once again called Colorado home.
Crawford had turned down a contract extension and left on his own. Hartley was fired after a slow start to the following season. The question now is whether or not it’s time to find a fourth and different head coach to lead this talent-laden Avs roster to the franchise’s fourth Stanley Cup? Do the Avalanche need a new voice from the top in order to get the current roster over the top?
They’ll never enter the postseason in a better position to win the Cup than they did this season. Yet something remains missing.
Bednar is an outstanding hockey coach. He might be the best one this team has ever had. But there comes a time when every locker room needs to hear something new and different. This is not a case of Bednar being too hard on the players (like Cassidy supposedly was) or too soft. It’s simply more about the messenger and the 10-year-old message.
The Golden Knights’ management saw their season slipping away and made a bold move that’s now paying off. They changed the messenger. Tortorella brought in a different mindset. He rejuvenated the veterans in the locker room, many of whom had already been to a pair of Stanley Cup finals as Golden Knights. Add to that the fact that he and his staff have simply out-coached Bednar and company through three games, and the favorites find themselves in an 0-3 hole. Vegas has out-defended the team that had the best defensive numbers during the regular season, and they’ve stifled the league’s best offense when it matters most. All while having less overall depth and talent.
They’ve shown that a new messenger can make all the difference.
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