For the first time in these NHL playoffs, the adversity facing the Avs looms as big as the “A” on their sweaters.

Home was where the hurt was Wednesday, when Las Vegas pushed around Colorado in a 4-2 loss to open the Western Conference finals.

For the first time in their pursuit of the Stanley Cup, the Avs were introduced to a serious shred of doubt, beginning with one big question: 

Dude, where’s Makar?

“He’s not playing,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said, “so we’ve have to find a way.”

Missing injured Cale Makar, one of the top five hockey players in the world, can the Avs survive if this best-of-seven series comes down to a battle of wits between coaches?

Bednar is blessed with a vastly more talented team.

But Las Vegas has the superior coach in John Tortorella.

“I’m not panicking,” Bednar said.

It’s not too early, however, for a healthy dose of desperation.

And it’s already past time to work up a healthy dose of hate for the unapologetic bad boys for the NHL.

Anywhere they play, these Golden Knights “have the confidence to go in there with swagger,” said winger Mitch Marner, who leads the playoffs in scoring.

If the Avs intend to be the champs, they can’t afford to lose Game 2. 

For the first time in these playoffs, Colorado looked as if winning the Stanley Cup might not be inevitable.

And to be brutally honest, from the time journeyman defenseman Dylan Coghlan blinded goaltender Scott Wedgewood with a prayer of a shot and beat him 5-hole for the opening score of the series, the Avs appeared to be downright vulnerable.

“Our players aren’t fazed,” Tortorella said. “We’ve gone over how we want to play. It’s not changed from (playoff) series to series, quite honestly. We’re trying to play our game, not worry too much about countering off another team. We’re going to try to play our game. And I think we’re very comfortable in it.”

After Las Vegas goalie Carter Hart smothered a shot by Nazem Kadri from point-blank range late in the first period, there was the usual scrum of raised sticks and raging testosterone at the net as a knot of agitated bodies untangled. But just when you thought order had been restored Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb took the liberty to throw a sneaky jab to Kadri’s mug.

So that’s how it’s gonna be, eh?

This series will be saltier than the rim of a 20-ounce margarita schooner.

The dark art of these Black Knights is the heavy lumber and fearless attitude they bring to the fight. In less than two months, they’ve become the personification of the recently hired Tortorella, who’s as cuddly as a prickly pear in the Mojave Desert.

With a mix of chutzpah, snark and glitz, Vegas has dragged this stodgy old hockey game into the 21st century. These Knights are easy to hate, but impossible to ignore. In spirit, they are the sinister sons of Dirty Al Davis, the puck version of what the Raid-uhs once were to the NFL.

While center Nathan MacKinnon has recited a don’t-worry, be-happy, have-fun mantra throughout the cakewalk of Colorado’s dominating 8-1 record through two rounds of the playoffs, the Black Knights turned him back into Grumpy Nate with 60 minutes of agitating hockey.

“It was kind of a nothing game, and then they got a few goals,” said MacKinnon, again looking like he’d like to bite the head off of that plush toy handed to him after losing the gold-medal game at the Olympics. “Really good team, obviously, but I thought we did a lot of damage to ourselves.”

Opening this series with the juice infused by a Ball Arena crowd craving the cup, Colorado quickly fizzled into a pitty-pat style of play that Bednar bemoaned as far too indecisive.

“Can’t baby the puck around the ice,” Bednar said. 

The Avs fell into a 2-0 hole when their power-play defense fell apart at the seams, allowing Vegas winger Pavel Dorofeyev to cleanly beat Wedgewood to the short side a little more than 15 minutes deep into the second period.

Colorado came out in the third period with urgency and nearly 84 seconds of power-play opportunity of its own. But after being unable to generate any real momentum, much less a score, as soon as the Knights got back to even strength they went up by three scores on a goal by Brett Howden.

Before an empty-net goal iced Game 1 for Vegas, the Avs cut their deficit to a single score late in the third period after Val Nichushkin and Gabe Landeskog rallied teammates by lighting the lamp.

“I’d like to see the urgency and the relentlessness we had in the third period earlier in the game,” Bednar said.

Oh, now he says it.

Didn’t Bednar recently tell us he doesn’t coach determination or competitiveness?

That’s precisely what Tortorella does best.