Colorado Avalanche coach Jared Bednar and Vegas Golden Knights coach John Tortorella kept the yin and yang in perspective on Friday night.

Not everything was disastrous for the Avalanche, which trails 0-2 in the Western Conference final after dropping Game 2 at Ball Arena 3-1. Not everything was perfect for Vegas, which now heads to T-Mobile Arena two wins away from the Stanley Cup Final.

Colorado held on to a 1-0 lead from the 16:59 mark of the first period through the middle of the third but surrendered two goals in just over two minutes and a subsequent empty-net goal to the visitors.

“There’s obviously things in the game, especially when you give up two in the third period, that you don’t like. There’s a lot of that game that I really liked,” Bednar said.

One of those things may be the first-period play of Colorado goaltender Scott Wedgewood. When the Avalanche turned the puck over and gave quality looks to the Knights, Wedgewood kept his team from falling into an early deficit.

The netminder stopped NHL postseason scoring leader Mitch Marner on a breakaway and a shot from right wing Pavel Dorofeyev, who was open in the slot.

Despite a rough period, the Avalanche took a 1-0 lead into the first intermission on the play from Wedgewood and the score from left wing Ross Colton.

Colorado cleaned up the mistakes in the second period.

The Avalanche outshot Vegas 9-4 in the middle frame as Colorado stymied the Knights offensively with physical play.

Vegas has the better penalty kill unit this postseason with an 86% kill rate to the Avalanche’s 80%, but the penalty kill was great for Colorado, which staved off all four of the Knights’ power-play opportunities, including three in the second period.

The highlight of the kill unit’s play was perhaps center Jack Drury’s blocked shots following a hooking penalty to Nicolas Roy late in the frame.

Drury stopped back-to-back shots from Vegas blueliner Shea Theodore.

Tortorella acknowledged that his team had work to do on the power play.

“We’re going to have to be better; each and every game, they’re going to be better,” he said. “We’re going to have to be better in all areas, especially some of the situational play.”

The last time Colorado trailed an opponent 2-0 in a series was against the Dallas Stars in 2020. Bednar said his players know that they’ll face adversity in the postseason.

“We can’t ride the emotional roller coaster like fans,” he said. “You lose Game 1, you’re getting swept; if we win Game 1, we’re sweeping them. That’s not reality. You have to deal with the task at hand and what’s to come. We’re not going to try to win four games in the next night in Vegas. We’re going to try to win one game, right? It can sound cliché; it’s what it is, but that’s how we approach it.”