"We got a lot to look at coming up, so this one for me is about, I think we have five or six guys playing their first game, young guys that we drafted this year that did a nice job [at the Vegas Rookie Faceoff], and we wanted to see now that things ramped up a notch," said Bednar.
Defenseman Ryan Graves scored the Avs' only marker at 4:56 of the third period, tallying on a slap shot from the right point. Tyson Barrie and Matt Calvert picked up assists on the goal that cut the Golden Knights' lead to 3-1 at the time.
Graves, who was acquired at the NHL Trade Deadline last season from the New York Rangers, finished with three shots on goal, five shot attempts and four blocked shots in 19:33 of ice time.
"Big, physical, he's hard on the puck battles. He obviously has a great shot," Bednar said of the 6-foot-5 and 226-pound rear guard.
Colorado went 0-for-2 on the power play while Vegas capitalized on both of their two chances with the man advantage. Brandon Pirri opened the scoring with a power-play marker 6:05 into the first period, and Alex Tuch tallied the other on a tic-tac-toe play on the backdoor with 1:46 left in the middle frame to give the Knights a 3-0 lead.
Erik Brannstrom also scored for the Golden Knights in the second stanza, while Reid Duke and Erik Haula tallied in the third period. Four Vegas players finished with multi-point outings, as Brannstrom and Tuch had a goal and an assist each while Tomas Hyka and Paul Stastny both finished with a pair of helpers.
Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov made 21-of-24 saves while playing the first two periods. Spencer Martin guarded the pipes in the third stanza in a pre-determined switch and finished with four saves on six shots.
Golden Knights goalie Zach Fucale stopped 24 pucks. Vegas outshot Colorado by a 30-25 margin.
The Avalanche's next preseason contest is Saturday at the Minnesota Wild. The game begins at 4 p.m. MT and will be televised on NHL Network.
