The Avalanche, the team many see as the Western Conference favorite, must settle for second to begin the Stanley Cup playoffs.
With the conference’s No. 1 seed up for grabs in their round-robin finale Saturday, the Avs never led but rallied to force overtime before losing 4-3 in sudden-death to the Vegas Golden Knights at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
“We didn’t execute to our best ability,” Avs star center Nathan MacKinnon said after leading a 35-shot attack. “We feel like we have another gear. (Not) to take away anything from them, but we felt like we could have buried more of our chances and put the game away.