LAS VEGAS -- Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar’s decision to replace goaltender Scott Wedgewood with Mackenzie Blackwood for Game 4 of the Western Conference finals wasn’t a bad idea, if only the backup netminder had received goal support.
The Vegas Golden Knights completed a 4-0 series sweep of the top-seeded Avalanche with a 2-1 win Tuesday night and will return to the Stanley Cup Final for the third time in their nine years in the NHL.
The Avalanche now prepare for a long offseason. They had a dominant regular season, tying for the sixth-highest points by a Presidents’ Trophy winner with 121, going 8-1 in the first two rounds of the postseason while averaging 4.1 goals, and falling flat in the conference final by averaging just 1.75 goals.
“I think it just feels like a waste to be honest,” forward Logan O’Connor said. “Eighty-two games, you get tons of great pieces (players) and it feel as though you have a team that can do something special. And for us, at the end of the day, we said it in training camp, it’s ‘Cup or bust’ for us. Regardless of where you fall short, we fell super short of that goal.”
Though Blackwood dropped to 0-5-1 in six career appearances against the Golden Knights, he said he thought his performance was “good enough to probably get the win” after stopping 24 shots and holding the Knights to one goal until the third period.
“Obviously ... sucks no matter how you do it,” said Blackwood, when asked if it is harder to accept being swept. “I think losing like that stings a little more. Yeah, that’s going to be pretty frustrating. We are going to have a tough pill to swallow.”
The Avalanche, who were held to one goal for only the third time during the postseason and second time in this series, didn’t get a shot on goal for more than 25 minutes over the second and third periods, as the Golden Knights were deliberate with their checking.
Offensive star and assistant captain Nathan MacKinnon, who led the Avalanche with 15 points in the playoffs, finished the series without a goal after netting at least one in six previous playoff games.
Martin Necas, who was second on the team with 13 postseason points, had only two assists against Vegas and only one goal during the playoffs.
Gabriel Landeskog scored for Colorado on Tuesday to cut Vegas’ lead in half with 2:03 left. The Avalanche managed only one shot on goal after that, from MacKinnon, but Vegas goaltender Carter Hart continued his brilliant postseason by making his 20th save.
“We run into a buzz saw in Vegas. ... It’s a really good hockey team, and they won,” Bednar said. “They deserve the credit, you know. It’s not a knock on our guys. I just think we played hard and didn’t find enough solutions to what they were doing in order to win the series.
“Humility is certainly a word you use for it. I think that’s sports in general. I think you’re going to run into that a lot on any given day on any given year, and especially in the playoffs, right? So yeah, losing sucks, and losing four straight is worse.”
