Player Safety has to act on Thomas Hertl's cheapshot on Martin Necas
The Colorado Avalanche walked out for Game 4 looking nothing like the No.1 team in the league.
Nathan MacKinnon is in the lineup. Cale Makar is in the lineup. Both are clearly playing through pain, and Martin Necas just exited after a play with Tomas Hertl.
No penalty was called on the Hertl sequence. The clip surfaced quickly via B/R Open Ice. The contact looked worse than the official ruling suggested.
This is now three top-six pieces walking wounded inside the same series. MacKinnon blocked a shot in Game 3 and limped down the tunnel. Makar has been managing a day-to-day tag for days.
Necas joins the list as the latest injury concern. The 27-year-old just authored a 100-point regular season with 38 goals and 62 assists on a $6.5 million cap hit.
His playoff line is just as ridiculous: 11 points across 11 games, with 10 assists. The Avs second line falls apart fast without him centering it.
Why playing hurt could cost Colorado this series
MacKinnon hit the ice for Game 4. He doesn't look like himself. Makar is back too, and his usual edge-work has been visibly tighter. The eye test isn't lying.
Jared Bednar made the call to roll both of them out. The captain wanted to play. The first-pair defender wanted to play. That doesn't mean either of them should have.
Colorado finished first overall at 55-16-11 with 121 points and a plus-99 differential. That regular-season machine only worked because three specific players were full-go every night.
What does GM Chris MacFarland say about playing his best assets at 75 percent? Probably nothing publicly. The Avs are letting the trainer's room handle the messaging.
Honestly, this is the part of playoff hockey where toughness becomes its own trap. Coming back from injury looks heroic until you're losing a series because the players coming back can't keep up.
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John Tortorella's Knights aren't going to apologize for taking advantage of the situation. Vegas finished the regular season on a 7-0-3 run across its last 10 games. They've been the hottest team in the West for weeks.
The Avalanche are gambling. Bednar is gambling. MacKinnon and Makar are gambling. The hope is that limited-effort superstars are still better than no superstars at all.
This series doesn't pause for medical updates. The injury report keeps growing. The scoreboard does the talking from here.
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MAY 26, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Gabriel Landeskog | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Cole Smith | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Mark Stone | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Dylan Coghlan | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nic Dowd | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nazem Kadri | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Brayden McNabb | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Martin Necas | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Shea Theodore | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Rasmus Andersson | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Barbashev | - | - | - | |
| Mackenzie Blackwood | - | - | - | |
| Brent Burns | - | - | - | |
| Ross Colton | - | - | - | |
| Pavel Dorofeyev | - | - | - | |
| Jack Drury | - | - | - | |
| Jack Eichel | - | - | - | |
| Noah Hanifin | - | - | - | |
| Carter Hart | - | - | - | |
| Tomas Hertl | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||