LAS VEGAS (AP) — Tomas Hertl weaved his way toward the slot and scored the winner at 8:21 of the third period to rally the Golden Knights from a three-goal deficit Sunday night and defeat the Colorado Avalanche 5-3 and move to within one game of their third Stanley Cup Final appearance in nine years.
The Golden Knights go for what would be a stunning sweep over the President’s Trophy winners on Tuesday night. Chicago in 2013 was the last team to win the President’s Trophy and the Stanley Cup in the same season.
Colorado will try to become just the fifth team to win a series after falling behind 3-0. Los Angeles in 2014 was the most recent team to accomplish that in eliminating San Jose in their first-round series.
Vegas, which trailed 3-0 after the first period, was 0-19 in the playoffs when behind that many goals. The Avalanche were 74-1 when holding such a lead.
Colorado has other concerns because front-line center Nathan MacKinnon might not be fully healthy going forward. MacKinnon, who has 15 points this postseason and led the league in the regular season with 53 goals, took a puck to his right knee in the second period and played through the injury.
That comes just as the Avalanche got back star defenseman Cale Makar, who missed the first two games this series because of an upper-body injury.
Hertl, Mark Stone and William Karlsson each had a goal and assist. Keegan Kolesar and Brett Howden scored the other Golden Knights goals, and Mitch Marner and Kaedan Korczak each tallied two assists. Carter Hart made 32 saves.
Stone’s goal came on his first appearance since suffering a lower-body injury in Game 3 of the second-round series against Anaheim. Kolesar, who had gone 37 playoff games without a goal, picked up his first point of the postseason.
Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri and Jack Drury scored for the Avalanche, and Devon Toews had two assists. Scott Wedgewood stopped 18 shots.
The Avalanche dominated the first period by taking a 3-0 lead, but the Golden Knights thought they had cut the deficit to 2-1 when Pavel Dorofeyev appeared to score a power-play goal with 7:26 left. Officials immediately waved it off and the decision was upheld on video review.
Colorado then made the Golden Knights pay when Drury found himself alone on a breakaway, deking Vegas goalie Hart to score the short-handed goal with 6:45 left for the three-goal lead.
But the Golden Knights didn’t let the two-goal swing trouble them too much, with Stone’s power-play goal 19 seconds into the second period sparking a three-goal answer to tie the game heading into the final period of regulation.
Then Hertl broke the deadlock — and now the Golden Knights just need to win one of four games.
There was a moment of silence before the game for two-time NASCAR champion driver and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch. He died Thursday at 41 after severe pneumonia developed into sepsis, according to a statement from Busch’s family.
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