Colorado's stars put on thrilling display in Game 1 domination of Vegas

Coming into Game 1 of the highly-anticipated Colorado-Vegas series, the conversation largely centered around “rest versus rust” and the surprising decision of the Golden Knights to start Robin Lehner after Marc-Andre Fleury backstopped them through a grueling seven-game series against Minnesota.

Coming out of Colorado’s 7-1 Game 1 demolition of Vegas, there are answers to some of those questions but now accompanied by a whole new slew of questions.

Behind a dominant first period that saw them score two goals and jump all over a clearly-tired Vegas squad, the answer to Colorado’s big question was clearly “rest”, which was referred to as “a weapon” during the postgame pressers by both Gabe Landeskog and Cale Makar.

For Vegas, sitting Fleury was all about giving him the rest the Golden Knights didn’t get as they rolled the dice with their $5M backup in Lehner. When Colorado made it 4-0 early in the second period, it was obvious that Lehner was just going to have to wear whatever number the Avs were going to drop on him because head coach Pete DeBoer was going all the way with giving Fleury the rest.

In doing so, it might have cleared up any confusion that might have existed about who their best option in net actually is right now. Not that Lehner could do much about the barrage of brilliance bestowed upon him by the Avalanche in Game 1, but the net is clearly Fleury’s moving forward.

Looking more like the Harlem Globetrotters than anything the NHL usually has to offer, Colorado’s star players put on a dazzling display of dominance Sunday night.

With the entire NHL world watching the first game of a series that has been talked about and hyped up as potentially special all season, Nathan MacKinnon dropped three points (2g, 1a) and Cale Makar (1g, 3a) served notice to everyone else that Colorado’s A-game is unstoppable.

There’s no doubt that Vegas was exhausted in this game. Beginning in Game 4 of their series against the Wild, the Golden Knights just finished a stretch where they played five games in nine days in three different cities with no consecutive days off. The playoff grind is hard when you don’t finish off opponents when you have the chance.

The Avalanche, sitting idle since handily dispatching an overmatched St. Louis Blues team last Sunday, looked rested and hungry. They pounced early and often, putting this game out of doubt just four minutes into the second period when MacKinnon’s engine got revved up and put the Avs ahead 4-0.

Before that, it was Makar’s show as he registered assists on Colorado’s first three goals with a variety of different plays. It ended up being a remarkable showcase of Makar’s dynamic skillset as his first assist was the result of a disruptive stick interrupting a Jonathan Marchessault cross-ice pass that turned into the rush opportunity that Mikko Rantanen buried for the game’s first goal.

Makar’s second assist was a beautiful display of team hockey as Makar drew in the Vegas attention, got Lehner to commit to the shot, then found a wide-open Landeskog on the backdoor for an easy tap-in to make it 2-0.

The third assist from Makar in the game’s first 22 minutes came as he regrouped with the puck in his own zone and found Val Nichushkin hopping off the bench and hit him with a stretch pass. From there the puck landed on Brandon Saad’s stick, who scored into a gaping net to make it 3-0.

Then Makar made way for The Nathan MacKinnon Show to begin, which it did in a familiar dominant fashion.

MacKinnon scored goals four and six, the second on a breathtaking display of speed through the neutral zone that caught the entire on-ice Vegas contingent off-guard and he smoked one past Lehner to make it 6-1.

Somewhere between his goals, he combined with Landeskog and Rantanen on a gorgeous passing play with the man advantage. Landeskog got his second freebie of the night and capitalized, giving Colorado a further stranglehold on a game they completely dominated start to finish.

Makar added a goal late in the third period at the end of a nine-minute (!!!!) Avalanche power play following the predictably dangerous antics of Vegas enforcer Ryan Reaves (more on this situation below).

It was an extremely impressive display. It was the kind of stunting only a special team is capable of. There’s a lot of series left and you know Vegas will have a quality counter-punch in them, probably starting in Game 2. This is far from over.

But as far as Round 1 bells go, this was as close to a knockout punch as an NHL team can get.

TAKEAWAYS

• The Reaves incident is ugly, abhorrent stuff. I feel like every time I watch it, it gets a little bit worse. The thing that really bothers me the most is trying to understand what Ryan Reaves could possibly be thinking as the entire incident plays out. It’s a relatively innocuous play and a post-whistle scrum, the kind of thing Reaves lives for (literally because that rough stuff is the only value he brings to a hockey club at this stage of his career), and Reaves immediately goes fishing for trouble. He gives Philipp Grubauer a light cross-check to the back of Grubauer’s head, which draws the ire of Ryan Graves, who is standing right there. Reaves then takes Graves down to the ice and instead of stopping when one player is completely defenseless, Reaves seems to use this as a moment to take things even further. He ends up putting his knee on the neck of Graves while driving Graves’ face into the ice. Even after Graves gets free and rolls over, Reaves is still after him. There’s always the “heat of the moment” stuff that players use as their “get out of jail free” card for their actions during these tense affairs but what Reaves did shows an extra level of malice that flat-out doesn’t belong anywhere in pro sports. What Reaves was doing to Graves isn’t something that would fly in an MMA cage, let alone on NHL ice. What in the world is he thinking? And if he’s not and he’s simply reacting, isn’t it even scarier that when Reaves loses control his auto-response is to inflict as much pain and damage on the opposition as possible? This isn’t trench warfare, it’s a f****** hockey game. Watching Reaves completely lose his cool and go after Graves the way he did should be the end of his NHL career, much the same way Marty McSorley’s all-too-casual slash to the head of Donald Brashear was the end of the noted pugilist’s career. What happened tonight went beyond just player safety and ventured into the realm of person safety. If Reaves was in control and consciously did what he did, he’s unhinged. If he lost control and let instinct take over, he’s still unhinged. It’s unacceptable and everyone is very fortunate Graves came back at the end of the game and seemed fine in the end. Once, you know, they got done scraping his blood off the ice.
• The common refrain on social media from those who thought what Reaves did was justified or at least explainable all pointed to the hit from Graves on Mattias Janmark in the second period as the catalyst. As if, you know, Ryan Reaves isn’t a grown-ass man capable of making his own decisions. No, you see, he was spurred on by something that happened in the second period but they never went and challenged Graves to drop the gloves after Janmark left the game following the hit from Graves, which was punished by the officials as interference. To my eye, the hit was just a tick late but otherwise completely textbook. Graves never left his feet, flared his elbow, and didn’t target Janmark’s head. In fact, the bulk of the damage on the play came because Janmark went awkwardly into the boards, head-first. Will Carrier chased Graves around a couple of times, leading to two penalties on Carrier back-to-back, but that was it. From our vantage point, there was no discernible indication that a Vegas player challenged Graves to an actual fight, even when Reaves and Graves lined up across from each other for a faceoff. The two players never looked at each other. For a player with the reputation of Reaves (the ultimate big guy who can take anyone), you’d think simply having Graves answer to the hockey code and fight in defense of his injuring a teammate would’ve been the answer. Instead, it was waiting for a post-whistle scrum to get after him.
• This is how great postseason rivalries get started. That part is fun, of course, but watching multiple players leave this game (Janmark, Graves, Sam Girard) was concerning. Both Graves and Girard returned for the end of the game but it’s fair to wonder how this develops in subsequent games.
• I believe the win tonight makes Colorado 19-0-1 in their last 20 home games. They’re currently on a 10-game winning streak and just completed the month of May with exactly one loss, the come-from-ahead loss to the San Jose Sharks at the beginning of the month that put the President’s Trophy up for grabs. Feels like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?