One lousy game into the NHL playoffs, being the defending champion means zilch, and Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has a tough decision to make.

Does Bednar break up his top line, splitting Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen before frustration has a chance to set in against a Seattle team that didn’t give a Kraken about the Avs’ championship pedigree during a 3-1 victory in Game 1 of this best-of-seven-series?

Or would asking Rantanen to invigorate a No. 2 line that has been suspect since the Avs let Nazem Kadri walk as a free agent be pushing the panic button?

Your move, Mr. Bednar.

Proactive or patient? How should the leader of a champ that looks very vulnerable react?

Will Bednar consider breaking up the MacK and Mikko show?

“Yes, for sure,” Bednar said late Tuesday after the home-ice advantage his Avs worked diligently for all the way through the final minutes on the final night of the regular season was effectively erased by the Kraken.

This is one of those tough decisions that weighs on the mind of a coach who got paid the big bucks with a recent contract extension.

“This will be the first thing I look at: What are we creating with Nate and Mikko together? Is that line dominant?” Bednar said. “Both the top two lines have to be productive lines for us, right?”

Well, as Bednar knows, I’m always here to throw in my two bits of cheap advice.

I say make the move. It’s not panic. It’s the right thing to do.

Instead of being MacK’s sidekick on the top line, place more responsibility on the shoulders of Rantanen, a 55-goal scorer this season. MacKinnon can be brilliant no matter who plays on his right wing, with Valeri Nichushkin being an obvious candidate.

Prior to puck drop, the captain wore a suit instead of a sweater, with injured Gabe Landeskog, out for the playoffs, reporting to a seat in the press box high above the ice in Ball Arena as a capacity crowd shouted “Our flag was still there!” during the national anthem.

After the loss, Nathan MacKinnon wore his bitter-beer face, in a manner a little too reminiscent of his grumpy demeanor before the magical run to the Cup a year ago, when the playoffs were an annual exercise in frustration for a superstar trying to do too much, because that’s what was required of the first-line center on a team without adequate scoring depth.

Our old friend Phillip Grubauer was feisty between the pipes for the Kraken, allowing only one of 35 Colorado shots to light the lamp.

In a Colorado locker room that cleared out faster than the last day of school, MacKinnon was asked what he saw out of Grubauer.

“Nothing,” replied grouchy MacKinnon, his competitive fire burning far too hot to be gracious toward a former teammate.

Nothing? Funny, that’s what I saw from Colorado’s No. 2 scoring line of Artturi Lehkonen, J.T. Compher and Nichushkin.

Maybe the Avalanche braintrust of Chris MacFarland and Joe Sakic should’ve been more aggressive in their pursuit of talent at the trade deadline and added some oomph to the team’s firepower. Or maybe they saw Landeskog was unlikely to return from a nagging knee injury that now puts his future as a key component of the team in doubt, and decided 2023 just didn’t feel like it was Colorado’s year.

A year ago, a life-size cardboard cutout of Bob Hartley on the Avalanche bench could’ve won the Cup. During the opening-round sweep of Nashville, the Avs all but eliminated the Predators during the opening 20 minutes of Game 1 in a series that Colorado won by a cumulative score of 21-9.

But in a Blink-182, all those good vibes are gone.

The half of the tournament bracket on this side of the Mississippi appears to be wide open, as Colorado joined Las Vegas, Dallas and Edmonton as higher seeds that all lost the opening game of the playoffs on home ice.

Bednar will review the tape of this loss in Game 1 with a cold, calculating eye.

But we all saw the potentially fatal flaw of this Colorado team.

Ever since Kadri took the money and ran off to Calgary, there was a fear in the back of the minds of everyone who loves the Avs this team could struggle to score in the playoffs, when the screws get tightened on top-line superstars.

After watching this performance, shouldn’t it be obvious what Bednar should do with the lineup of his top six forwards before Game 2?

“If I don’t like it,” he said, “I’ll likely change it.”

Shake it up. Split up MacK and Mikko.

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