Golden Knights sweep Avalanche, advance to third Stanley Cup final in nine seasons

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Mark Stone and Cole Smith scored for Vegas and the Golden Knights suffocated Colorado’s high-powered offence to beat the Avalanche 2-1 on Tuesday night for an unthinkable sweep to make their third Stanley Cup final in nine seasons.

The Golden Knights will get a break while they watch to see whether Carolina or Montreal emerges from the Eastern Conference final. The Hurricanes lead that series 2-1, with Game 4 on Wednesday.

This is a crushing end for an Avalanche team that won the Presidents’ Trophy and had blown through the playoffs with an 8-1 record. Chicago in 2013 was the last team to claim the Presidents’ Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season.

Stone scored for the Golden Knights on a lob pass from Brayden McNabb deep in his zone. Stone caught the puck and had a direct path to the net and made the most of it. Smith later tipped in Dylan Coghlan’s shot from the point with 5:45 left for a critical two-goal margin.

Carter Hart stopped 20 shots, coming within 2:03 of his first playoff shutout in six years.

Gabriel Landeskog ended that shutout, one of the few highlights of the night for the Avalanche, who went the final 14:23 of the second period without a shot on goal and more than 22 minutes with just one shot.

Mackenzie Blackwood, making his first start in the series, gave the Avalanche a chance to win with several dazzling stops en route to 24 saves overall. His best stop came late in the second period when he lunged to glove a power-play shot from Pavel Dorofeyev.

The journey to the Cup final isn’t quite the Cinderella story of the Golden Knights’ first team that made the Stanley Cup final in 2018 before losing in five games to Washington, but Vegas’ journey to this point was far from expected.

The Golden Knights faced the possibility of not making the playoffs for just the second time in franchise history when management fired coach Bruce Cassidy, who led the club to the 2023 title, with eight games left in the regular season.

In came John Tortorella, who validated the controversial decision by leading Vegas to a 7-0-1 record to close the regular season and then series victories over Utah and Anaheim. Then the Golden Knights faced an Avalanche team on a roll and without any sign of slowing down.

At least until facing Vegas.

Colorado coach Jared Bednar searched for answers against the Golden Knights, even changing goalies on Tuesday. The Avalanche also dealt with injuries to their top two players this series — reigning Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar and Hart Trophy finalist Nathan MacKinnon.

The Golden Knights had their own injury issues, winning the first two games of the series without Stone.

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Mark Anderson, The Associated Press