The regular-season champion Colorado Avalanche are set to clash with the powerhouse Vegas Golden Knights in a heavyweight showdown in the Western Conference final. Can the Avs’ league-leading offense overwhelm Vegas to push Colorado into the Stanley Cup final?
The NHL’s 2025-26 Western Conference final series is locked in, as the best team in the league all season, the Colorado Avalanche, will battle the Vegas Golden Knights, the Pacific Division’s best team, for the right to represent the West in the Stanley Cup final.
There are notable links between the Avalanche and Golden Knights. Veteran center Nicolas Roy played for Vegas for six seasons before landing in Colorado by way of the Toronto Maple Leafs – and the Golden Knights beat the Avs in the second round of the 2020-21 playoffs in the only post-season meeting between the two teams.
After going 4-4 through the first round, we went 1-1 with our second-round predictions for the West.
Although the Eastern Conference finalist teams aren’t completely decided, we had the Carolina Hurricanes winning their second-round series against the Philadelphia Flyers, so the worst we can go is 6-6, and the best we can go is 7-5.
Don’t forget, the predictions you see below are simply straight-ahead guesstimates. We’re all taking swings at the plate with these fun exercises, and we’re not always going to hit a home run with them. But let’s get to it, with our Western final prediction:
Colorado Avalanche (C1) Vs. Vegas Golden Knights (P1)
Season series: Avalanche 2-1
Why Colorado will win: The Avalanche got to the Western final by steamrolling the Los Angeles Kings and then taking it to the Minnesota Wild in the second round. Although they did lose one game to the Wild, Colorado ultimately showed why they were the NHL’s best regular-season team from start to finish this year.
Thus far in the playoffs, the Avs have had the strongest offense, averaging 4.11 goals-for per game, and Colorado has also had a strong defense, averaging 2.56 goals-against. Those are both better numbers than the Golden Knights’ offense (3.67 goals-for) and Vegas’ defense (2.58 goals-against). By almost every metric, the Avalanche have been the stronger team.
The Golden Knights have had two relatively easy opponents in the Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks in the first two rounds, but Vegas is about to run into a team that has nearly zero flaws. Colorado did get more of a test in the second round, and you can argue that the Minnesota team they beat is a better team than the Golden Knights are.
Like every leviathan, the Avalanche do have weak spots. The Avs currently have the NHL’s sixth-worst penalty-kill, averaging only 79.3 percent efficiency. So if the Golden Knights can get Colorado into making undisciplined errors, Vegas could give the Avalanche a serious scare.
But we’ve been picking the Avs to win each series, and we’re not stopping here. The Avalanche are the class of the league, and nothing less than a superhuman, nearly error-free effort from the Golden Knights will stop Colorado from getting back to the Stanley Cup final for the first time since they won their most recent Cup in 2021-22.
Why Vegas will win: The Golden Knights have gotten stronger as the playoffs have unfolded, and they took it to a Ducks team that upset the Edmonton Oilers in the first round, so you have to give Vegas credit for ratcheting up their collective game when the games have mattered most.
But as noted above, the Knights are going to need to be almost-perfect if they’re going to beat a phenomenal Avalanche team.
Now, if Vegas can continue getting eye-popping performances from star right winger and playoff-leading-point-getter Mitch Marner (11 assists, 18 points) – and if star center and captain Jack Eichel (14 assists, 15 points) continues adding a ton of offense – you can see the Golden Knights putting a scare into the Avalanche.
But the bigger key for Vegas will be the play of goalie Carter Hart.
The 27-year-old Hart has a very good .917 save percentage in 12 appearances, but in Vegas’ past three wins over the Ducks, Hart posted a save percentage of .939 or higher. He’s going to be tested repeatedly by the Avalanche.
Still, if Hart can stymie Colorado long enough for players like Marner and Eichel to do their thing, the Golden Knights have enough Cup-winning experience of their own to squeeze past the Avalanche and into the Cup final.
We’re not suggesting Vegas has no chance to beat Colorado. Any team that reaches the conference final is a good team. However, the Golden Knights don’t have the depth the Avalanche has, and at a time when teams need to minimize mistakes, Vegas could lose this series because they make a few more errors than Colorado does. While it’s not likely to be a fast series, in the end, we like the Avs a little bit more than we like the Golden Knights.
Prediction: Avalanche in six games
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