LAS VEGAS — Tomas Hertl worked his way into the slot and scored the winning goal at 8:21 of the third period as the Golden Knights rallied from a three-goal deficit Sunday night, beat the Colorado Avalanche 5-3 and move to within one game of their third Stanley Cup Final appearance in nine years.
The Golden Knights are in for what will be a stunning sweep of the Presidents’ 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 trailing 3-0. Los Angeles in 2014 was the most recent team to accomplish this by eliminating San Jose in a first-round series.
Vegas, which trailed 3-0 after the first period, is 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 forward center Nathan MacKinnon may not be completely healthy moving forward. MacKinnon, who had 15 points in the postseason and led the league in the regular season with 53 goals, pinched his right knee in the second half and played through the injury.
This comes as the Avalanche get back star defenseman Cale Makar, who missed the first two games of this series with an upper-body injury.
Hertl, Mark Stone and William Karlsson each had a goal and an assist. Keegan Kolesar and Brett Howden scored the other goals for the Golden Knights, and Mitch Marner and Kaidan Korczak each had two assists. Carter Hart made 32 saves.
Stone’s goal came in his first appearance since suffering a lower-body injury in Game 3 of their second-round series against Anaheim. Kolesar, who went 37 playoff games without a goal, earned his first point of the postseason.
Gabriel Landeskog, Nazem Kadri and Jack Drury scored for the Avalanche, and Devon Toews also had two assists. Scott Wedgwood stopped 18 shots.
The Avalanche dominated the first period with a 3-0 lead, but the Golden Knights thought they had cut the deficit to 2-1 when Pavel Dorofeev appeared to score a power-play goal with 7:26 left in the game. Officials waved it off immediately and the decision was upheld after reviewing the video.
Colorado then made the Golden Knights pay when Drury found himself alone on a breakaway, tricking Vegas goaltender Hart into scoring the shorthanded goal with 6:45 left for a three-goal lead.
But the Golden Knights didn’t let the two-goal swing bother them too much, as Stone’s power-play goal 19 seconds into the second period led to 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 only 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 age 41 after severe pneumonia developed into sepsis, according to a statement from Bush’s family.