Rantanen's hat trick was thwarted, Georgiev benched the ugly Avs opener

When a Colorado Avalanche player scores a hat trick, he usually wins the game.

That didn't happen Wednesday night in Las Vegas, as Mikko Rantanen's three-time goal in the net in an ugly 8-4 loss wasn't nearly enough to open the 2024-25 NHL regular season.

The story of the night was that starting goalkeeper Alexandar Georgiev was sent off after allowing five goals in the first two periods of the game. Substitute Justus Annunen replaced him in the third half and didn't do much better.

In fact, Georgiev only had 11 saves compared to five goals allowed through two periods of play. That's not a recipe for success and brought back memories of Georgiev's terrible end to last regular season and the nightmare in Winnipeg in Game 1 of the playoffs.

The Avalanche actually took an early 1-0 lead when Rantanen scored about halfway through the first period. Unfortunately, Vegas scored just 27 seconds later to make it 1-1.

That was the theme of the game as Colorado could never maintain the momentum.

Before you could bat an eyelid, the score was 3-1 for the Golden Knights after the first period. Georgiev allowed a few questionable records, something Avs fans are used to, and the race for a comeback was on.

Rantanen made it 3-2 on the power play in the second period, but Vegas scored less than two minutes later to take a 4-2 lead. Casey Mittelstadt cut it to 4-3 near the end of the frame, and again the Knights responded. Victor Olofsson scored his second goal of the night just before halftime and after two goals the score was 5-3 for Vegas.

That's when head coach Jared Bednar made the decision to bench Georgiev and replace Annunen. With about seven minutes to go, Rantanen scored the hat trick to make the score 5-4, but of course Vegas did the hat trick just 90 seconds later to make it 6-4. Whenever you thought Colorado would close the gap and even things up, they couldn't do it.

Eventually the game got out of hand and the Knights added two more late, including an empty-nitter.

It's only one of 82, but people will overreact because it's the first. And there was a lot to react to, most of it negative. After a long summer, this wasn't the start the Avalanche faithful had envisioned. The team had plenty of firepower on offense, but was never able to make a crucial save or defensive stop when it needed it.

At some point there should be reinforcements in the form of Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin and Gabriel Landeskog, but that won't happen tomorrow.

And in the meantime, none of these guys play goalie. If the season opener was any indication, it could be a mediocre few months before the calendar turns to 2025.