Despite star D-man Cale Makar's return, Colorado's collapse at both ends of the ice and subpar goaltending have them close to elimination after three games. They're just the 10th No. 1 seed to trail 3-0 in a series.
Before they began their Western Conference final against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Colorado Avalanche were the popular favorite to win the series and get to the Stanley Cup final.
But not only are the Avalanche not leading this series – after losing Sunday's Game 3, they're on the verge of getting swept.
It's not just that Colorado has lost the first three games of the series that makes this such a shocking situation – it's the way the Avs are losing.
In Game 3, the Avalanche took a 3-0 lead into the first intermission, only to allow Vegas to score five unanswered goals to push Colorado to the brink of elimination. It's absolutely crushing for Avs fans, to say nothing of Avs players and management.
The situation is as shocking as it gets, even if this isn't the first time a team has taken a 3-0 series lead against the No. 1 seed.
In fact, Vegas became the 10th team in league history to do so and the third in the past eight post-seasons to do so. More recently, the Tampa Bay Lightning earned a 3-0 series lead on the Florida Panthers in the second round of the 2021-22 playoffs, and the Columbus Blue Jackets did the same thing against the Lightning in the first round of the 2018-19 playoffs. Both teams with the 3-0 lead won the series.
No No. 1 seed that trailed 3-0 in a series has pulled off the reverse sweep. Even if the Avs won Game 3, the only Presidents' Trophy winner to overcome a 2-0 deficit in a best-of-seven series is the 2001-02 Detroit Red Wings. They pulled it off against the Vancouver Canucks in the 2002 conference quarterfinal, winning in six games.
In general, no team that's trailed 3-0 in the round before the Cup final has ever pulled off the reverse sweep, and it's happened 49 times.
So even if it's rare for this year's top seed to be in this position, it would be even more rare to come back and win the series at this point. And the Presidents' Trophy curse about the regular-season champions not often winning the Stanley Cup is not a good enough excuse for what's happening to the Avs right now.
You might blame Colorado's first two losses to Vegas on the injury-related absence of superstar defenseman Cale Makar, but he returned in Game 3 and logged 27:14 of ice time. Even if we presume Makar is playing through injury, the bottom line is Colorado had all of its key players on the ice and still crumbled in Game 3.
You might also want to pin some blame on Colorado's goaltending, as starter Scott Wedgewood's .877 save percentage and 3.16 goals-against average in three games aren't ideal. But Wedgewood and tandem mate Mackenzie Blackwood won the William M. Jennings Trophy this season for being goalies on the team that allowed the fewest goals, so their goaltending can't get much better than it has for the vast majority of the year.
The Avs have run into a hot goalie in Carter Hart, who's limited them to six goals in three games.
And when Vegas can get 10 playoff goals out of Brett Howden in the playoffs after he scored 12 in 58 regular-season games, the Golden Knights are getting the production and depth contributions that the Avalanche haven't received in this round. Howden scored the empty-net goal in Game 3 and had the game-winning goal in the first matchup of the series.
With the confidence the Golden Knights have built up in the first three rounds, they'd be forgiven for feeling like they can't lose.
And at the other end of the confidence spectrum, the Avs seem thoroughly overwhelmed by the Golden Knights. Even those who believed Vegas would win this series likely didn't believe it'd be in a position to sweep Colorado.
You never want to completely count out a team that's looked as good as the Avalanche have looked for much of this regular season and post-season. But the Avs have shockingly dug themselves a massive hole to try to crawl out from, and it's now highly likely they won't advance to the Cup final.
Unless they get a full team effort in the remaining games against Vegas and they benefit from good fortune for the hockey gods, the Avalanche will be sent home for the year, nursing physical and mental wounds that will sting for a very long time.
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