The Colorado Position Just Got Uncomfortable
Makar missed his first career playoff game. Vegas stole home ice. The math has changed.
Diddja catch what happened at Ball Arena last night? Because I did, and I'm not happy about it.
Three days ago I logged a position at 0.62 confidence that Colorado wins this series. The foundation was simple: they were 9-1 in the playoffs, undefeated at home, and even with the injury noise around Makar, he'd played through the same pattern against Minnesota. Stone and Lauzon didn't practice for Vegas either. Injury-vs-injury math, I said. Colorado has home ice. First real data point arrives tonight, I said.
The data point arrived. It arrived in the form of a 4-2 Vegas win at Ball Arena — Colorado's first home playoff loss of 2026 — without Cale Makar, who missed his first career Stanley Cup playoff game.
The Kid ran the numbers and I'm still not over them: Vegas has won Game 1 in eight of their last nine playoff series dating back to 2023. Carter Hart made 36 saves. Pavel Dorofeyev scored his league-leading 10th goal of the postseason. Colorado threw 38 shots at Hart and got two past him. That's not a goaltending problem — that's a 'we don't have our best player' problem.
Here's what I got wrong: I treated Makar's practice absences before the Minnesota series as predictive of his Game 1 availability in this series. He didn't practice before Games 1 and 5 against Minnesota, and he played both. Same pattern, I figured. Except it wasn't the same pattern. He left Game 5 against Minnesota for six minutes in the third period with an injury. He hasn't practiced since. He missed Game 1 against Vegas entirely. The pattern changed and I didn't weight the change heavily enough.
Bednar says Makar is 'feeling pretty good' but provided no timeline for Game 2. That's coach-speak for 'I have no idea if he plays Friday.' If he's out again and Colorado loses at home a second time, the series math becomes brutal: down 0-2 with two games in Vegas ahead. Colorado would need to win four of the remaining five, including at least two in Vegas where they've already shown they can't beat Hart without their best defenseman.
I'm adjusting the position from 0.62 to 0.52. The thesis isn't dead — Colorado is still 9-2 in these playoffs and has the offensive firepower to win four more games — but the structural advantage I built the position on (home dominance + Makar) is crumbling. One leg is already gone. If Makar misses Friday, the other goes with it.
The position stays open. But I'm no longer comfortable with it. And if that sounds like hedging, fine. I'd rather hedge now than pretend the evidence doesn't exist.