DENVER — Jared Bednar hasn’t been getting as much sleep as he’d like lately. The week off between the end of the second round and the start of the Western Conference final might be restful for the Colorado Avalanche players, but for the coaching staff, it’s a weeklong cram session, the deepest of dives into the Vegas Golden Knights’ tendencies to know, strengths to counter, weaknesses to exploit.Bednar equated it to the last week of summer, when he’s trying to get his messaging together for the start of training camp. It can be even more stressful and more taxing than the series itself.“The excitement is starting to kick in today, because we’re here,” Bednar said before Game 1 at Ball Arena on Wednesday. “But besides that, it’s a lot of work and a lot of sleep.”Well, Bednar and his staff have plenty more work to do.Vegas withstood an early barrage and then completely took over, defeating the top-seeded Avalanche 4-2 and wresting home-ice advantage away. Game 2 is Friday in Denver.After a tense first 30 minutes, the Knights started to tilt the ice midway through the second. And when Dylan Coghlan beat Scott Wedgewood between the legs from the high slot at 12:30 of the first to give Vegas a 1-0 lead — Coghlan’s first NHL goal since Dec. 17, 2021 — the Knights were in full control. Pavel Dorofeyev scored his postseason-leading 10th goal just 2:33 later, burying a beautiful Mitch Marner feed for a power-play tally and a 2-0 lead. Brett Howden then scored his ninth goal of the postseason — he had just 12 in the regular season — shortly after a successful Vegas penalty kill when he batted down a Ben Hutton rebound and got his stick on it before it crossed the goal line.Valeri Nichushkin woke up the crowd with a goal at 5:54 of the third, going between his own legs to knock in a Ross Colton centering feed, and Gabriel Landeskog put in a Nathan MacKinnon feed for a power-play goal with 2:21 to go to cut the lead to one, but unlike in Game 5 against the Minnesota Wild in the second round, the three-goal deficit proved too steep a hill for Colorado to climb. Nic Dowd beat out an icing call to bury an empty-netter with 44.5 seconds left.Vegas, without injured star winger Mark Stone, spent the first five minutes of the game scrambling just to get out of its own end. But Colorado, without injured star defenseman Cale Makar, couldn’t sustain the pressure, with too many one-and-dones in the offensive zone, and too many transition chances going the other way. Vegas’ stout team defense held the high-octane Avalanche in check, blocking 22 shots and slowing them down through the neutral zone. Three of Colorado’s best chances in the first two periods came from fourth-line winger Logan O’Connor — not what you’re looking for from a team with Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Nečas and perhaps the deepest forward roster in the league.Carter Hart made 36 saves for Vegas, including a terrific stop of a Nazem Kadri power-play shot at the first-period horn. Wedgewood was sharp early, stopping a Keegan Kolesar breakaway and kicking aside a tricky Tomáš Hertl shot two minutes later.