Avalanche fans are reacting after Jared Bednar's latest Game 4 announcement
Nathan MacKinnon and Jared Bednar are still alive tonight, and that alone changes the temperature around Colorado.
That is the headline.
MacKinnon will play in Game 4 against Vegas after taking a puck to his right knee in Sunday's loss, and for an Avalanche team down 3-0, there was no bigger question on the board.
Now there is no mystery.
Their best forward is in.
That does not guarantee anything, of course. Colorado is still staring at elimination, still trying to recover from blowing a 3-goal lead in Game 3, and still chasing a Vegas team that has looked calmer and more complete through this series.
But MacKinnon playing matters because it keeps the Avalanche's ceiling alive for at least one more night.
He is the one player who can rip control away from a game in a couple of shifts.
He can change pace, tilt the ice, and force Vegas to back off the blue line just enough for Colorado to breathe.
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Jared Bednar just made a major Game 4 announcement
That is what this gives them.
The injury scare after the puck hit his right knee could have broken the room even more. Instead, Bednar gets to put his top star back on the sheet for a game that decides whether Colorado still has a pulse.
That is massive.
It also says something about MacKinnon.
Guys do not jump into Game 4 down 3-0 unless they believe there is still something to save. He could have protected himself, leaned on the injury, and nobody would have been shocked.
He did not.
He is going.
That is the kind of message teammates notice fast.
The Avalanche still need a lot more than MacKinnon dressing, though. They need cleaner defending, more finish from the support group, and a lot less chaos than what showed up when Game 3 slipped through their hands.
That is where this gets hard.
Colorado has already spent too much of this series reacting instead of dictating. MacKinnon can help fix that, but he cannot do it alone if the rest of the group keeps leaving the door open.
Still, this is the first real jolt of life the Avalanche have had since the series started turning ugly.
MacKinnon in the lineup means hope is still real.
And in a Game 4 like this, that is not a small thing.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 25, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Shayne Gostisbehere | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Taylor Hall | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Michael Matheson | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Andrei Svechnikov | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jackson Blake | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Cole Caufield | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Jake Evans | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mark Jankowski | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Seth Jarvis | - | 1 | 1 | |
| K'Andre Miller | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Eric Robinson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Sebastian Aho | - | - | - | |
| Frederik Andersen | - | - | - | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zachary Bolduc | - | - | - | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | - | - | |
| William Carrier | - | - | - | |
| Jalen Chatfield | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||