The Colorado Avalanche will be taking the fight to the final Western Conference opponent standing in these Stanley Cup Playoffs: the Vegas Golden Knights. Four more wins separate each team from another appearance in the Stanley Cup Final.

The Avs and Golden Knights are the last two Stanley Cup winners coming from the Western Conference. One of them will have another chance to fight and bring it west of the Mississippi.

Colorado Avalanche

The Avalanche had a pretty standard run with its first-round sweep over the Los Angeles Kings. They followed that up with a five-game series in the second round against the Minnesota Wild, where a Brett Kulak OT winner put them over the top.

Speaking of Kulak, he and the rest of the defense will need to step up. First, they’ll need to step up when it comes to their health. Sam Malinski has missed games because of an upper-body injury, and Josh Manson only recently returned from an upper-body issue. Brent Burns has also not taken part in recent practices.

Cale Makar is also out there taking the fight to his own issues. He was banged up heavily in the Wild series and missed chunks of time during games.

While there’s no other Cale Makar for the Avs, he’ll need more support around him. Devon Toews will have to step up his game, as he’s been quiet all playoffs long. The same can be said for Kulak and the other defensemen when healthy.

Unfortunately, a combination of Nick Blankenburg and Jack Ahcan will not win you a Stanley Cup. It is pivotal for the Avs to get healthy and stay healthy on the blue line against a deep Vegas side.

Even with good goaltending, they will need support from the guys in front of them. Scott Wedgewood has still been the goaltender of choice, but he faltered at points in the series against the Wild. Hence, Mackenzie Blackwood saw action in about 1.5 games, where he was good, then fell off again.


Up front, the Avalanche will need more offense, which is crazy to say all things considered. A more consistent offense that can go toe-to-toe on both sides of the ice will be big.

It’s where someone like Artturi Lehkonen getting back to health will help. He will fight in the corners for the puck and maintain puck possession. Valeri Nichushkin also shows this potential, as he is still looking to explode.

Speaking of someone who can fight, Gabriel Landeskog can do just that. Not only can he drop the gloves, but he can also drive plays forward and lead by example on and off the ice.

Of course, that’s all without the big guns like Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas also continuing their hot streaks. If they can all combine, this is Colorado’s Western Conference to lose.


Finally, rest for them has been key. They’ll come into this series with nearly a week of rest. While rest is good, they’ll look to keep carrying the momentum of their one-loss postseason into the conference final.

Vegas Golden Knights

Vegas’ path to the Western Conference Final was tougher than they would’ve expected. The newly established Utah Mammoth took Vegas to six games in the first round.

Instead of facing the Edmonton Oilers for a third time in four seasons, they faced a young and hungry Anaheim Ducks team in the second round. They too took the Golden Knights to six games, and Vegas has clinched every series on the road so far.

They will face Colorado for the first time in the postseason since 2021, when they rattled off four straight wins to move on. However, that team differs greatly from the one today. Even the team today is different from the team they fielded against Colorado earlier in the regular season.

John Tortorella behind the bench is a massive shake-up over Bruce Cassidy. He has seemingly unlocked something in Mitch Marner, who has been on fire for the Golden Knights.


Marner leads all playoff scorers in the league with 18 points in 12 games. He has seven goals, which isn’t even the highest on his team. Pavel Dorofeyev has nine goals, while Brett Howden has eight goals. Vegas’ depth and ability to have high-scorers everywhere is huge for them.

That’s not including Jack Eichel, who has 15 points with only one goal to his name. The Golden Knights arguably have the best depth to go toe-to-toe with Colorado, and they’ll need everybody on fire once again in the fight.

However, there are questions about the health of their captain, Mark Stone. He is dealing with a lower-body injury and missed the end of the Ducks series. It’s a matter of “wait and see” with Stone, who is currently listed as a game-time decision for the start of the Western Conference Final.

On the blue line, Shea Theodore leads the way with nine points in 12 games, made up of four goals and five assists. Noah Hanafin, Rasmus Andersson, and Brayden McNabb will also look to shut down the Avs offensively.

In the crease, Carter Hart has played in all 12 games with a goals-against average of 2.37 and a save percentage of .917%. However, he’s had some big moments in the postseason, rebounding after some rough performances early on.

It’s part of the reason Tortorella entered the fray, and his goaltending has shored up nicely. His entire team, which was in a slump heading into the playoffs, has shored up nicely.

However, this will be the toughest test of the postseason for the Vegas Golden Knights. With the Pacific Division being a near pillow fight, Vegas will look to show it was a gauntlet fight with a massive conference final victory over the Avalanche. Should they accomplish it, they would appear in the Stanley Cup Final for the third time in just their nine-year history.

The schedule and what to expect

Expect this series to be tense and close. It’s been a track meet when these two teams met in the regular season, and it went down to the wire every time.

Colorado won both games on the strip, including a wonderful comeback win before the start of the new year. However, Vegas won the lone game at Ball Arena this season in the second game of Tortorella’s tenure.

The winner of the series will probably come from the team that has the best defense and goaltending. Colorado has relied on it all postseason long, but has a tough test against a team getting hot at the right time with its chemistry.


Of course, each team will also have to rely on its offense and perhaps outscore its defensive or goaltending problems. This series will be a treat to watch, with the Avalanche looking for sweet revenge from 2021. That series loss led to the Stanley Cup win in 2022 for Colorado. This time, they’ll look to take the series win for good and get another chance at the Stanley Cup four years later.

Game One will take place on Wednesday night at Ball Arena at 6:00 p.m. MT on ESPN. Each game will take place every other day at 6:00 p.m. MT (except for Game Four at 7:00 p.m. MT) on ESPN, with a possible Game Seven to wrap up the series taking place on June 1.