Vegas Golden Knights halfway Jack Eichel (9) drives with the puck arsenic Colorado Avalanche defenseman Brett Kulak (27) and halfway Martin Necas (88) support portion Golden Knights defenseman Noah Hanifin (15) trails the play during the 2nd play successful Game 2 of the Western Conference finals NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff bid Friday, May 22, 2026, successful Denver. Photo by: David Zalubowski / Associated Press
Associated Press
Friday, May 22, 2026 | 10:18 p.m.
DENVER — The Colorado Avalanche, the NHL's best squad during the regular season, are successful superior information acknowledgment to a Vegas squad that's connected a tally aft a late-season coaching change.
“I don’t deliberation radical had this connected their bingo card,” Golden Knights defenseman Dylan Coghlan said. “We knew we could bash it.”
Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev scored successful a 2:07 span successful the 3rd play and the Golden Knights stunned the Avalanche 3-1 connected Friday nighttime to instrumentality a 2-0 pb successful the Western Conference Final.
Eichel tied it, past acceptable up Barbashev for the go-ahead extremity with 8:38 remaining. Barbashev added an empty-netter with 1:03 left. The comeback stunned the capableness assemblage and wiped retired the top-seeded Avalanche's 1-0 lead.
By winning doubly astatine Ball Arena, the Golden Knights enactment the Presidents' Trophy-winning Avalanche in a immense hole. Since 1982, roadworthy teams that started 2-0 successful the league finals person a 13-0 bid record.
“They recognize the situation,” said Vegas coach John Tortorella, who has watched his squad spell 17-4-1 since helium took implicit connected March 29. “I’m not definite wherever the bid goes. I’m not definite wherever Game 3 goes. But I cognize I’m not going to person to interest astir that, due to the fact that they get it."
Carter Hart had different stellar performance, stopping 29 shots. He made 36 saves successful a 4-2 triumph connected Wednesday.
Colorado was cruising aft Ross Colton opened the scoring successful the archetypal period. But things unraveled for the Avalanche successful the third. Eichel lined a changeable past Scott Wedgewood for his archetypal extremity successful 11 games to get Vegas connected the board.
“I haven’t scored successful a cardinal days,” helium cracked.
The Golden Knights past took vantage of a miscue — Devon Toews and Brock Nelson struggled to wide the puck on the boards successful the Avalanche extremity — arsenic Eichel sent a walk to Barbashev, who rang successful a changeable disconnected the post.
This was the 4th third-period comeback by the Golden Knights successful this postseason, the astir successful a azygous playoffs successful squad history, according to NHL Stats.
“Just resiliency,” Hart said. “That’s the cardinal connection for our radical present — we’ve conscionable stuck successful games and conscionable grinded it out, and conscionable battled. Resiliency, that’s a word that describes our radical truly well. We’re ne'er retired of the fight, and we’re ever grinding successful games.”
Game 3 is Sunday nighttime successful Las Vegas. The Avalanche are hoping to person prima defenseman Cale Makar backmost successful the lineup. He has missed the past 2 games due to the fact that of an upper-body injury.
“There's urgency to get him backmost since helium got hurt,” Avalanche manager Jared Bednar said. “He's doing each the enactment helium tin perchance bash to get backmost arsenic accelerated arsenic helium can.”
Before the Golden Knights' rally, the Avalanche were 45-0-0 erstwhile starring aft 2 periods successful the regular play and playoffs combined.
“It stings for definite close now,” Avalanche skipper Gabriel Landeskog said. “But time we’ll aftermath up, person a meeting, alert to Vegas and regroup. That’s each you tin do.”
Vegas struggled connected the powerfulness play, going 0 of 4. The squad besides saw defenseman Brayden McNabb limp to the locker country successful the archetypal play soon aft taking a cheque on the boards. He returned for the 3rd period. The hard-checking Golden Knights finished with 32 hits and 16 blocked shots.
“We cognize however hard it is to win,” Eichel said. “A batch of that falls connected playing hard defensively.”
Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson concisely near precocious successful the 2nd play aft delivering a cheque connected Barbashev and past ramming his look into the boards.
Wedgewood had 22 saves.
“We can't thrust the affectional roller-coaster similar fans,” Bednar said. “If you suffer Game 1, you're getting swept. If you triumph Game 1, we're sweeping them. That's not reality. You person to woody with the task astatine manus and what's to come. We're not going to effort and triumph 4 games the adjacent nighttime successful Vegas. We're going to effort to triumph 1 game.”
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