Game 3, meet Game 4. You’re so alike, I have a feeling you’re going to get along great. As long as you aren’t from Colorado, it’s going to be an adorable match and you could have a fantastic long-term future together.

The Avalanche heads back to Denver following a 5-1 thrashing at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights with no more series lead, no momentum, and everyone wondering just what the hell happened to the team that looked so special just one week ago?

Nobody really seems to have an answer. Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar threw down the gauntlet after Game 3 and challenged his team to compete harder. In a lot of ways, you can say they responded to that aspect.

Their execution failed to follow them to Vegas, however, and the Avs finally saw the dam break with Philipp Grubauer having his only poor showing of the postseason so far. Even then, you can’t ding Grubauer too much for the game that he had because the team in front of him once again played so poorly.

Continuing a trend that began in Game 2 and continued into tonight, the Avs scored just one goal at even strength. They finally lost the special teams battle tonight and that’s what really contributed to the floodgates opening for Vegas.

To be frank, the Golden Knights deserved this type of game in both Games 3 and 4 and for most of Game 2.

While Jonathan Marchessault was recording a hat trick and watching as his line of misfits continued piling up the production in this series, Colorado’s response was…59:10 of scoreless hockey.

Brandon Saad’s goal 1:50 in was an exciting way to start the game but the Avs immediately took a penalty that Vegas didn’t score on but built momentum from and went right back to force-feeding the Avs scoring chances.

Colorado’s top line finished with fine fancy stats, going positive in shot metrics thanks largely to a third period where Vegas took their foot off the gas as they nursed a 4-1 lead with relative ease.

But the vaunted three-headed monster that tore apart the St. Louis Blues has been less and less impactful as the series has worn on. They all did plenty of eating greedy in the Game 1 blowout over Vegas but Mikko Rantanen’s power-play goals in Games 2 and 3 have been the only offense from that group since.

You’ll take goals however you get them but the Nichushkin-Jost-Saad trio has a 3-2 goals advantage over Colorado’s top line since the start of Game 2. That isn’t close to good enough, especially while Nazem Kadri is out and seems to have taken all of the offensive punch from Joonas Donskoi and Andre Burakovsky with him.

Nathan MacKinnon, the player we were all so quick to anoint the world’s actual best player once Connor McDavid meekly bowed out after another lackluster postseason performance, has one assist in the last three games. Not only is his legendary competitiveness not on display, but there were also shifts tonight where if things didn’t well as soon as he got into the offensive zone, he just circled back and went for a change.

What?

All three of Cale Makar, Devon Toews, and Sam Girard had frustrating sequences

The Avs talked all year about their standard for how hard they wanted to compete and the accountability in that locker room after losses kept them from any prolonged losing streaks.

Great! That’s a great tone to set for the season. Now, where is the response?

Where is that result of all that culture-building the Avs have been doing?

I’m not doubting it’s there, to be clear. I bought the kool-aid the Avs have been selling all year, but it’s time to see it.

It’s now or never for the Avalanche. We saw it last year when Dallas went up 3-1 and the Avs scratched and clawed and came within five minutes of pulling off an extremely unlikely upset with a banged-up team.

There are no excuses this year. There are no free passes. The playoff system set them up for what should have been, at the very earliest, a Conference Finals matchup for Round 2? So what? They would have had to go through Vegas eventually. Why not Round 2?

It’s time to prove that all the talk building up to this means something. They said all the right things after Game 3 and then trotted out depth guys to talk after Game 4.

The optics aren’t great, but they don’t really matter. What matters is whether or not the Colorado Avalanche shows up and be the Colorado Avalanche we’ve seen so often this year. If they don’t, they’re going to be Colorado Avalanche, a highly-paid golf squad by the end of this week.

TAKEAWAYS

• It’s easy for people like me to sit and question lineup decisions and wonder how a guy like Patrik Nemeth keeps getting the nod game after game, especially when there’s an outsized talent in Bowen Byram just chomping at the bit to get back into the action. It’s the easiest thing to criticize a coach for, especially because most people don’t know enough about the Xs and Os of hockey to make a significantly deeper analysis than that. It’s just how it is. Nemeth has his pros (good size, physical defender, good PK guy) but they’ve been seen too infrequently to make up for by far his biggest con, which is his iffy puckhandling ability. When under pressure, we’ve seen Nemeth consistently make either a poor decision or poor execution and far too often it’s been both. You point to the flow of the game in the first period tonight and Nemeth has the target squarely on his back. Colorado scores 1:50 into the game and has a chance to quiet an incredibly loud and amped-up Vegas crowd. Instead, Nemeth takes a penalty immediately and then even though the Avs kill it, makes an atrocious turnover that leads to the first Vegas goal. Goodbye momentum, goodbye lead, hello major problems. It’s the kind of showing that should get a player who has not been a positive force through any of the four games in this series benched. I understand the concerns about bringing Byram in but if you’re going to lose this series, why not go down swinging with your best talent in the lineup? Why go to bat for the limited skillset of Nemeth when a potentially dynamic addition in Byram is right there? Why keep giving these opportunities to a player who has not earned the leash he’s been given? Whatever abilities Nemeth brings aren’t enough to handle the speed and skill of Vegas. Just one man’s opinion here but it’s time.
• Major 2020 flashbacks with Devon Toews in this one. I know most Avs fans were otherwise occupied when Toews was getting eaten alive by the Tampa Bay Lightning in last year’s conference finals but I remember it. It was basically the one concern I had over that deal and the play of Toews across the last two games has been a very unwelcome look back at the past. He’s so much better than this.
• All of the top line needs to be way, way better than they were in Vegas but Gabe Landeskog recording zero shots on goal in both games? Really?
• Andre Burakovsky was a huge reason for Colorado’s comeback against Dallas last year that felt about five minutes short. He’s also a huge reason the Avs are struggling to score beyond that top line. Three assists in eight games? That’s Washington Burky. The Avs need Colorado Burky if they’re going to find their way through this.
• The only thing I am absolutely confident in about Game 5 is that Philipp Grubauer is going to kick ass. I usually have a rule about being confident in anything related to goaltenders but I am putting it into the universe for all to consume: Grubauer is one of the three stars on Tuesday night.