Golden Knights Captain Mark Stone scores the Game 5 Winner in Overtime to beat The Avalanche 3-2 (Photo: Justin Edmonds/Getty Images)Photo: Getty Images North America
The Avalanche now face elimination after falling 3-2 in overtime to the Golden Knights in Game 5, as the series shifts back to Vegas for Game 6, as the Knights lead the series 3 games to 2.
Colorado was poised to take 3-2 series lead at Ball Arena after 2 periods of play thanks to goals by forwards Brandon Saad and Joonas Donskoi in the 2nd, but, then the 3rd period happened. In the 3rd, they blew a 2-0 lead, which legendary hockey analyst Barry Melrose will tell you is the most dangerous lead in hockey, and just like that Las Vegas scored twice thanks to Alex Tuch and Jonathan Marchessault, and the game was tied at 2 at the end of regulation.
It didn't take long in overtime to steal the game as Vegas Captain Mark Stone scored on a breakaway less than in a minute in, and that was that. Despite the result, Avalanche Head Coach Jared Bednar liked just about everything else from his team, "You gotta work through mistakes," he said. "That’s what it is. It’s a game of mistakes. I loved the way we played tonight, I thought we were the aggressors, we played to win the hockey game, played to our identity."
Bednar shook the lines up moving Saad up to the top line and dropping Captain Gabe Landeskog down to the 2nd line, and playing forward Logan O'Connor for the first time since March 31st and re-inserting forward Alex Newhook into the lineup.
Bednar didn't want to dwell on the negative outcome because he really thought his team out-played Vegas, "The 3 goals they got…they were all turnovers," He said. All 3 goals they had were on turnovers. We also did a lot of good things and created a lot of chances, we have to clean up those plays. To me, I liked our attack mentality, we defended hard, I thought we did a lot of good things, a lot of good things…"
Bednar's boys will now have to hit the road in front of a capacity crowd of more than 18,000 in Sin City on Thursday, but he knows his team is capable of winning a tough game in a hostile environment. "You have to be able to do it on the road, you have to be able to do it at home, and right now we don’t have a choice, we have to go do it," he said. "I don’t care if it’s home or road, and I don’t think our guys do either, we’ve played well home and road, and we’ve won in Vegas."