Postgame: Avalanche Complete First-Round Sweep of Los Angeles Kings
· Yahoo Sports
The Colorado Avalanche are heading to the second round.
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Following Sunday afternoon’s 5-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings, the Avs completed a four-game sweep of the second wild Kings after winning both games at Crypto.com Arena.
The Avs will meet either the Minnesota Wild or Dallas Stars in the second round. That series is currently tied 2-2 and will extend until at least Thursday. If it goes to Game 7, the series won’t end until next Sunday.
Nathan MacKinnon scored two goals, while Cale Makar, Nic Roy, and Devon Toews each had one for the Avalanche, who were a perfect 3-for-3 on the penalty kill while also tallying their first power-play goal of the four-game series. Colorado was 1-for-2 on the man advantage.
Scott Wedgewood remained perfect in goal, going 4-0 in his first four career playoff starts. Wedgewood stopped 24 shots as the Avalanche outshot the Kings 32-25. Wedgewood let in just five goals in the entire series.
Down three games to none, the Kings began Game 4 with more urgency than we’ve seen in any other game. Perhaps it was the desperation of having their backs against the wall. They got some good looks that were all stopped by Wedgewood, as they collected six of the first eight shots in the opening period.
The Avs eventually started to come on. And after killing off two penalties, the second of which had zero L.A. shots, the Avalanche drew a power play of their own. Kings blueliner Brian Dumoulin was sent to the box for interference at 12:57.
Head coach Jared Bednar sent out his top power play unit. And for the first time in the series, on their 10th try, they solved the Kings’ penalty kill. MacKinnon one-timed it from the left circle off a setup from Nazem Kadri just 16 seconds in. Goalie Anton Forsberg got a piece of it, but not enough, as the puck trickled past the goal line to give Colorado a 1-0 lead.
The Avs continued to press and ended the period with another PP, which was unsuccessful. They carried that momentum into the second period, where Makar scored his second goal in two games to double the lead.
Makar held the puck in at the blueline as Kings forward Scott Laughton tried to get it out of the zone. He decided to go one-on-one with Taylor Ward, beating the 28-year-old forward to the outside before placing it nicely on the outside of Forsberg’s glove and into the back of the net at 5:48.
At that point, Colorado had a 13-3 shot advantage and a 2-0 lead since the early Kings push.
The Avalanche had all the momentum. But Kings head coach D.J. Smith made some changes to his lineup, attempting to get back into the game/ Smith removed Artemi Panarin from the top line and replaced him with Alex Laferriere.
The Avalanche had played Panarin well at even strength in the series. Removing him from Anze Kopitar and Adrian Kempe helped Laferriere come in and play a different style. it ended up leading to the Kings’ only goal.
Laferriere cycled the puck down low to Kempe, who found Joel Edmundson at the top of the circle. The veteran blueliner fired it through Wedgewood, who got a piece of it, before it passed the goal line at 13:43.
Leading 2-1, Colorado came into the third period adamant that this series would end. Roy scored on a two-on-one play with Artturi Lehkonen at 3:13. That was followed up with Toews’ first of the series at the 6:01 mark to open a 4-1 lead. MacKinnon scored his second of the game on an empty net at 14:22 to make it 5-1.
Good: The Superstars Ended It
MacKinnon has never played in a playoff series in which he didn’t score at least a goal. And he wasn’t going to start now, even if it was one the Avalanche were dominating.
Between MacKinnon, Makar, and Toews, the Avalanche’s top pair and top line showed up to put an end to this series in four games. Colorado needed its depth to step in at times throughout the series. Game 4 is credited to the top guys.
Bad: Anze Kopitar’s Career Ends
As soon as the series began, it was clear that if the heavy-favorite Avalanche won this thing, they would be the ones to end the illustrious career of Kings captain Anze Kopitar. That was never something I liked. Congratulations on an excellent career to one of the NHL’s most respected players.
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