LAS VEGAS – Where’s the anger? Where’s the rage? The day after a monumental collapse, the Colorado Avalanche didn’t seem to have either.

If anything, they still seemed to be quite stunned.

“I think they made mistakes in the first period, and we made mistakes in the second period. They ended up getting goals,” Josh Manson said about 12 hours after the Game 3 mess. “And then they just found a way to win the game. I thought we had chances too. Sounds easy to say, but maybe compete a little bit harder to lock it down. Just every little detail that we can find.”

That’s it?

Manson, Brock Nelson, Martin Necas, and Sam Malinski spoke to the media on Monday afternoon, as well as Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar. They all said similar, but slightly different things. Stick with the process, go one period at a time, play with urgency while being smart, and the need to control your emotions in the moment.

That’s all well and good, but it all felt a little…off. Yes, the Avalanche have always been a team that focuses on the process with hopes that if they keep doing the right thing, everything will work out. For almost all of this season, it has worked. It hasn’t worked out this series and that’s what can happen when you get into a short series.

When Vegas has punched the Avalanche right in their mouths at key moments in games, the Avalanche either haven’t, or have taken too long, to punch back. The process is all well and good, but when your season is on the line, you’d expect to see a bit more fight. If they’re pissed off about what happened, and they very well could be, they’re doing a good job of hiding that side of things.

“We’re going into the third period in a tie game in Vegas, I feel like we were fine there,” Necas said. “Obviously, the second period was tough; they got the power-play goal right away at the beginning and they get a couple of bounces. But it’s not like they were absolutely dominating the period, you know? Just gotta be better from all of us, just the little details.”

A team that did not struggle with details much over the first 90 or so games has suddenly blown two consecutive leads, something they didn’t do all year. And when Vegas started to gain momentum, the Avalanche didn’t push hard enough. There wasn’t enough fight. In the last two third periods combined, the Avalanche have been credited with just one high-danger scoring chance.

If they want to have any chance in Game 4, they’ve got to be better in every single area of their game, whether it’s offense, defense or goaltending. But one area they absolutely need to be better at is matching Vegas’ intensity when things start to ramp up. That’s been lacking at key times through the first three games and has to change.

And it might be harder to do that if they’re missing the engine of the team.

Nathan MacKinnon’s status for Tuesday’s game remains in doubt. The star center blocked a shot around his right knee in the second period of Game 3 and after giving it a shot for a few shifts, only hit the ice late when there was a power play and when Vegas pulled their goaltender. Even then, on essentially one leg, he was doing everything he could to help his team, even backchecking to stop an easy empty net goal for the Golden Knights. You can only do so much when one of your legs isn’t working the way it normally does.

The Avalanche are unsure whether MacKinnon, as well as forward Valeri Nichushkin, will be available for them on Tuesday.

“Those guys are getting treatment, they’re getting evaluated,” Bednar said when asked for an update. “It could be tomorrow morning before we know, it could be game time before we know. So we just plan for all scenarios, and then go from there.”

An Avalanche lineup without MacKinnon seems scary to think about, especially given Nelson’s struggles to find any sort of momentum offensively. If MacKinnon can’t go, it won’t be because he didn’t try his darnedest to get on the ice.

“That’s one of my favorite things about playing with Dogg,” Manson said. “Regular season, playoffs, it doesn’t matter what it is, he is a tough, tough guy competitor. I know that whatever happens to him, if he can’t go it is because he cannot go. He is going to do everything in his power to play, to stay in the game, to help our team win. That’s just the type of player he is. That’s one of the biggest reasons why I love following him as a leader. I know I’m getting that he’s got to play.”

MacKinnon hasn’t had his best postseason offensively, particularly at 5-on-5 where he’s failed to score a goal, but the Avalanche are infinitely better off with him in the lineup than out of it. Whether or not he goes on Tuesday night, the Avalanche need to show a lot more fight if they want to extend their season.

“As individuals, everyone has some work to do,” Bednar said. “A little bit of soul searching and as a team collectively we have the same thing in order to get ourselves mentally prepared to go tomorrow night. Again, I think it boils down to not letting the disappointment overcome you. It’s about pride and character at this point.”