Avs choking away series vs. Vegas

The Avs skate like champs on the ice and talk like champs in the locker room and look like champs in their burgundy-and-blue sweaters.

But when NHL postseason pressure ramps up, they play like chumps.

The Stanley Cup is not awarded to C-minus hockey students. Blown leads, dumb turnovers and fading stars are not rewarded with championships.

After surrendering the final three goals Tuesday night to Vegas during a disheartening 3-2 loss, the Avs are now 60 minutes away from being eliminated from the playoffs and being exposed as a pretty team that tends to be oh-so-pretty vacant between the ears.

What’s wrong with Colorado cannot be fixed on the ice. The Avalanche needs a couch. And a shrink.

The Golden Knights have won three consecutive games and pushed Colorado to the brink of exasperation.

If we ooh, ah and drool over the mad skills of Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, it’s also only fair to acknowledge his disappearing act in this best-of-seven series is due in equal parts to a suffocating Vegas defense and a choke job by the one player Colorado can least afford to have come up small in big moments.

Whether heaping mounds of tough love on his players or shaking his lines like an Etch a Sketch, coach Jared Bednar has been so full of wrong answers that as we head to the “Final Jeopardy” portion of the Avalanche’s season, maybe he should be barred from the team flight to the Nevada desert for Game 6.

Out of appeals to belly-ache about a well-deserved suspension for a mindless hit during the opening-round series against St. Louis, let’s hope second-line center Nazem Kadri issued a profound apology to Colorado teammates, especially when you consider his anger management issues could prevent him from playing a single shift against Vegas.

There’s no sound sadder in pro sports than joy slowly hissing from a deflated crowd when the home team loses a playoff game in the oh-so-sudden death of overtime. After Golden Knights winger Mark Stone found nothing except open ice between him and Colorado goalie Philipp Grubauer and hammered the game-winning goal only 50 seconds into the extra period, it felt like a stake through the hearts of 10,495 spectators in Ball Arena.

Fifty seconds? That wasn’t even time enough to properly grieve all the chances Colorado squandered to take a lead significantly larger than 2-0 heading into the final 20 minutes of regulation time. In crunch time, the jittery Avs lost focus in much the same manner an anxious child forgets how to read music at a piano recital.

A mindless turnover by Andre Burakovsky and a careless, crossice pass by Gabe Landeskog giftwrapped golden scoring chances for Alex Tuch and Jonathan Marchessault that allowed Vegas to tie the score during the opening four minutes and seven seconds of the third period. When the stakes were high, the Avs crapped out.

“That makes it sound like the third period was no good. I mean, it was two plays that lasted about 10 seconds,” said Bednar, taking umbrage with my suggestion the Avalanche buried itself with stupid hockey mistakes no championship team makes. “I don’t have a problem with the way we played the third period. I had a problem with the way we managed those two situations.”

A year ago, when the Avs failed to advance past the second round, a long list of injured players missing from the lineup was used as a crutch. After they were eliminated in the NHL bubble by Dallas, I asked MacKinnon if significant changes needed to be made to the Colorado roster. MacK snarled disagreement, insisting that when healthy, he liked his team’s chances to win the Stanley Cup.

Well, during three consecutive Vegas victories that have knocked the Avalanche’s swagger on its keister, MacKinnon hasn’t made a peep. He has failed to tally so much as a single assist, let alone a goal, and played to a minus-3 while taking shifts that have been way too hyper to produce calm and cool efficiency. With the Golden Knights living rent free in MacK’s head, he needs help. Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar might be stars, but they’ve produced too rare moments of flickering greatness in this series.

After working all season to secure home ice throughout the playoffs, blowing a 2-0 series lead to Vegas would stink. Failure to advance past the second round again would begin to reek like the most sour smell in sports: squandered potential. There’s more than a whiff of suspicion that perhaps Bednar has taken this group as far it can go without a coaching change.

The Avalanche is a pretty hockey team that has tried for too long to get by on its good looks. When the going has gotten tough in these playoffs, however, Colorado has looked pretty weak, especially between the ears.

Can the Avs grow the mental toughness to win an elimination game on the road between now and when the puck drops in Vegas for Game 6?

“We don’t have much of an option,” Landeskog said, “do we?”