Golden Knights bring 'swagger' to another road win in Game 1

DENVER -- Call them villains. Call them underdogs.

The Vegas Golden Knights don’t care.

They worry about themselves and focus on winning, and they took that attitude into Game 1 of the Western Conference Final to defeat the Colorado Avalanche 4-2 at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

“You try to go in there with your same confidence, your swagger, and just play your game,” forward Mitch Marner said.

Controversy has been swirling around the Golden Knights lately, and now here they were taking on the Presidents' Trophy winning Avalanche, who finished first in the NHL in the regular season and started 8-1 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Vegas paid Colorado the proper respect. Coach John Tortorella said Tuesday that the Avalanche have been the best team in the League “by far.”

But what have the Golden Knights been since Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy on March 29? Perhaps the biggest thing Tortorella has done is remind his players of how good they are, of how good they can be.

They went 7-0-1 down the stretch, then defeated the Utah Mammoth in six games in the Western Conference First Round and the Anaheim Ducks in six games in the second.

Tortorella made a revealing comment to Vegas radio play-by-play announcer Dan D’Uva in a pregame interview Wednesday: “I’m not into all the Colorado … how good they are,” Tortorella told him. “It’s another team. We respect them. We’re going to play.”

Vegas made Colorado look like just another team in Game 1.

After weathering a storm early in the first period, the Golden Knights built a 3-0 lead.

Defenseman Dylan Coghlan scored the first playoff goal of his NHL career at 12:29 of the second period to put Vegas up 1-0. Forward Pavel Dorofeyev then scored on the power play at 15:02, giving him 10 goals, the most among all skaters in the postseason. Marner earned an assist on the goal, giving him 19 points to lead the playoffs. Forward Brett Howden got his ninth goal of the playoffs at 1:34 of the third period.

The Avalanche didn’t get on the board until forward Valeri Nichushkin scored at 5:53 of the third period. Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog cut the Vegas lead to 3-2 with a power-play goal with the goalie pulled at 17:39, but center Nic Dowd sealed the win for the Golden Knights with an empty-net goal with 45 seconds to go. 

Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon failed to score for the first time in seven games.

Vegas goalie Carter Hart made 36 saves, and his teammates blocked 23 shots.

“We know they’re a good team,” Hart said. “We know they’ve got a lot of skill on their team, and we respect that. But you can’t respect them too much, and I thought we did a good job of defending and limiting their time and space. I thought we blocked a lot of shots tonight, got in a lot of lanes and tied up some sticks.”

Look, Colorado won the Stanley Cup in 2022 and very well could win it again this year. 

But Vegas won the Stanley Cup in 2023, and this is the Golden Knights’ fifth trip to the third round in nine seasons. They have won more games (71) and more series (14) in the playoffs than any other team since they entered the NHL as an expansion team in 2017-18.

“Our players aren’t fazed,” Tortorella said. “We’ve gone over how we want to play. It’s not changed from series to series, quite honestly. We’re trying to play our game, not worrying too much about countering off another team. We’re going to try to play our game, and I think they feel very comfortable in it.”

The road? The Golden Knights relish hostile environments. They’re 5-2 away from T-Mobile Arena in the playoffs. Tortorella went as far as to say going on the road might even be an advantage for his players.

“They understand the situation,” Tortorella said. “It doesn’t need to be explained to them. I think they’re prepared and expect what’s going to happen before it comes their way, and they just go out and play.”

The scary part? As confident as the Golden Knights are, they aren’t overconfident.

This is a veteran group that knows this was just one game. While Vegas didn’t have captain Mark Stone, Colorado also didn’t have star defenseman Cale Makar. This was just the start of what could be a long series.

The Avalanche will respond. The Golden Knights will keep respecting them, just not too much, and keep trying to improve themselves.

“Listen, we had some major inconsistencies,” Tortorella said. “We didn’t play a flawless game by any means. We got some timely goals. We got some great saves at key times. We have work to do, and (it’s) nice to get the first one under your belt and get a win, but we have plenty of work to do when we’re playing against that team.”