The Colorado Avalanche are not an easy team to root for. They are a deep, übercapable team with few weaknesses. Their star scorer is a weirdo but not in a particularly endearing way. They have their Cup already. In any other year, in any other matchup, I'd be pulling for someone else to have their turn. But in this Western Conference Final, the Avs might as well be Team North America, for all the hopes and goodwill of the hockey world they're carrying. Over the next week or two, I want very badly for them to kick the Golden Knights in their golden nuts.
I'm not sure if a professional sports franchise can be ontologically evil, but if one can I know which one it is. This is not, as Vegas fans insist, a matter of pure envy because they keep winning. Or at least it's mostly not that. Sure, the Knights have been immutably successful over their limited existence, and no, their loyal supporters have yet to pay the Suck Tax, which is what truly bonds fandom. But lots of teams win. Few do it with such mustache-twirling cartoon villainy.
Even without their track record of circumvention and cutthroatery they're remarkably despicable at the moment, in ways ranging from the odious to the petty. They signed Carter Hart, who was cleared of criminal charges but not his actual actions in the Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal, when no other team would, and of course he's thriving as their starting goaltender. Following their second-round clinch, they refused to speak to the media over some imagined slight or other, drawing a startlingly robust penalty from the NHL that was clearly a reward for their collective body of asshole work. They're currently denying their former coach Bruce Cassidy permission to interview for another job after they fired him in March, a move pretty much without precedent and which has drawn the ire of the NHL Coaches’ Association. If It would do any good I would emphasize the hypocrisy involved, given that their current coach, bespectacled grump John Tortorella, was that hated media until just two months ago, and was only able to guide the Knights to the playoffs because his last team gave him the permission to interview. But accusations of hypocrisy carry no weight against unrepetant scoundrels.
I need the Avs to get Vegas the hell out of the paint, is what I'm saying.
Oh, goddamnit. Dylan Coghlan??
Carter Hart shut down the Avalanche attack early in Game 1, and then it was Dylan Coghlan of all people who opened the scoring in the series. Coghlan spent most of the season in the AHL, and hadn't scored an NHL goal since 2021, seven teams ago. He's in the lineup as a bottom-pair defenseman only thanks to Jeremy Lauzon's injury. You're probably fine if like, Pavel Dorofeyev or Mitch Marner beat you, and indeed Dorofeyev would score his playoff-leading 10th goal just a few minutes later, but when it's Dylan Coghlan scoring eminently blockable shots from the slot, deals with the devil start to feel more creditable.
Brett Howden would extend the Golden Knights' lead to 3-0 early in the third, and an Avs comeback ran out of steam and clock, an empty-netter giving Game 1 its 4-2 final score.
This road-tested Knights team certainly isn't afraid of the Avs, or awed by their Presidents' Trophy. "I’m not into all the Colorado—how good they are. It’s another team,” Tortorella said before the game. It's certainly a better team than "Utah" or "Anaheim," who Vegas was allowed to coast past by a favorable bracket. It'll be even better if and once Cale Makar rejoins the lineup; he's day-to-day (so is Mark Stone for Vegas). But the Knights were throughly outchanced in Game 1 and still emerged victorious. The absolute worst-case scenario is Hart standing on his head the rest of the way, and that's plausible enough: The hockey gods are fickle and veiled, and no one ever accused them of making moral judgments. But it's a long series, and the Avalanche are a good team, and I have a lot of hate in my heart.
