Two of the NHL’s hottest teams met on Thursday night in Denver when the Kings and Avalanche faced off. While both teams entered the night having only lost one regulation game in their last 10 outings, it was the Avalanche who prevailed and did so in dominant fashion. Falling to the Avalanche 4-0, the Kings will now return home and get ready for another set of back-to-back weekend games at Crypto.com Arena. The regulation loss moves the Kings record to 40-22-9 (89 points).
It was very much a playoff feel inside Ball Arena on Thursday and the extremely fast pace of play matched that. While no goals came in the opening 20 minutes, chances were traded back and forth but favored the Avalanche. After 20 minutes, the Avalanche led 14-7 in shots.
The Avalanche broke the scoreless tie 5:25 into the second period all thanks to an impressive individual play by Norris Trophy front runner Cale Makar. After circling the Kings offensive zone with possession of the puck all while fending off a pressuring Joel Edmundson, Makar centered the puck to the slot with a one-handed pass, setting up Logan O’Connor for a shot in a prime position. O’Connor was able to beat David Rittich and the Avalanche started rolling. Coming just 1:32 later, Martin Necas doubled the home team’s lead. Following a Samuel Girard missed shot from the point, Necas found himself in the right place at the right time as he gathered the puck behind the Kings net and quickly slid the puck into the net before Rittich could recover from his challenging of the Girard shot. Now up two, the Avalanche further extended their lead late in the period. Coming on the power play, the Avalanche were able set up their offensive zone personnel. Upon doing that, Makar fed Necas for a one-timer and the shot beat Rittich five hole with 4:31 to go in the second period. Through 40 minutes, the Avalanche led 3-0 on the scoreboard and 19-13 in shots.
The Avalanche added another goal on the man advantage in the third period to make it a four goal lead. Going tic-tac-toe after breaking the Kings aggressive penalty kill, Necas found Nathan MacKinnon, who put the puck on a tee for Jonathan Drouin. Drouin blasted a one-timer 4:56 into the period and the Kings had no response on this particular night.
Rittich stopped 22 of 26 shots.
