Aarif Deen
The series is set. The Colorado Avalanche will play the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2026 Western Conference Final.
As the No. 1 seed in the Pacific Division, the Knights, led by recently hired head coach John Tortorella, defeated the Anaheim Ducks in six games on Thursday to advance to the third round. They also eliminated the Utah Mammoth in six games in the opening round.
The Avalanche advanced past the Minnesota Wild in five games, capped off with a 4-3 come-from-behind overtime victory on Wednesday night at Ball Arena.
Vegas will travel to Denver early next week and the two teams will play Game 1 in Denver on Wednesday.
Colorado will have home-ice advantage, meaning it will also host Game 2, followed by the fifth and seventh games, if the series stretches that long.
The Golden Knights haven’t advanced past the second round since they won the Stanley Cup in 2023. The Avs were champions the year before that and are also making their first Western Conference Final appearance since their Cup year.
In the regular season, the Avs went 2-0-1 against Vegas, falling in the 79th regular-season game in overtime when they had already locked up the Presidents’ Trophy. The Knights, at the time, were fighting for their playoff lives and the top seed in their division. Colorado did not have Nazem Kadri or Cale Makar in the lineup in that game, which was the only meeting between the two clubs after Tortorella took over behind the bench.
Vegas collected only 95 points in the regular season and had just 39 overall wins. They were 7-0-3 in their final 10 games, which was around the time that Bruce Cassidy was fired as head coach.
Colorado and Vegas have met once before in the postseason, playing in the second round in 2021. That year, the Knights had Pete DeBoer as head coach. The Avalanche won the first two games of the series before the Knights won four straight to advance to the third round. They ended up losing to Artturi Lehkonen and the Montreal Canadiens.
The Avalanche are 8-1 in the postseason, reaching the third round in only nine games for the first time in franchise history.
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